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THE MENTAL SURVEY 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



BY 

RUDOLF PINTNER 

PBOFESSOB OF PSYCHOLOGY, OHIO STATE UNIVEBSITT 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK LONDON 

1918 



fpJij^'j : i3.J^^.,c<^iyl 






Copyright, 1918, bt 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



JUN -! 19^8 



Printed in the United States of America 



iD^CI.A497556 



PEEFACE 

I HAVE attempted to develop a method of tests for group 
purposes, in order to measure roughly the intelligence of 
large groups of children. The work began owing to the 
practical problem of finding the number of feeble-minded 
in a school or institution. To avoid needless testing of 
perfectly normal children some rough preliminary tests 
were made. The tests I turned to were those which had 
been fairly well standardized at the time, and that is the 
explanation of the tests I am presenting here. No claim 
is made that they are the best tests for such purposes. 
Doubtless better groups of tests will be devised in the 
future. 

The application of the mental survey to schools and the 
evaluation of school achievement in terms of mentality, 
is, I believe, the most important aspect of the present study. 

The book is divided into two parts. The first describes 
the method of standardization and gives some results. The 
second part is a guide for the use of the tests and has been 
written as clearly and simply as possible, so that the worker 
may follow, step by step, the procedure in giving, scoring 
and evaluating the tests. 

The material required for the survey tests is the standard 
material supplied by the C. H. Stoelting Company of Chi- 
cago. I have given illustrations of the test blanks used, 
with measurements of the size of the test sheets, so that 
those who may wish to print their own test blanks may 
do so. 

In the collection of the data for this book I am indebted 
to many people for their help and cooperation. I wish to 



vi PREFACE 

thank the principals and teachers of the schools in which 
the surveys were made, for their courtesy and their willing- 
ness to make out the lists of pupils according to their esti- 
mates of intelligence. I wish also to thank my advanced 
students for their assistance in conducting 'the surveys. I 
wish further to thank Mr. C. 0. Edington for the data 
obtained from the rural schools, and Mr. D. G. Paterson for 
allowing me to add to my norms the results obtained by 
him from about three hundred children. To Miss Lucille 
Boylan I am indebted for the tests given at Vineland, 
and I wish here to thank her and the Psychological De- 
partment at the Training School for their cooperation. 

EUDOLF PiNTNER. 

Cokfrmhus, Ohio 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introduction 3 



PART I 
THE TESTS AND THEIR STANDARDIZATION 

11. The Tests ' 13 

III. The Computation of the Results ... 28 

IV. Surveys of Schools 40 

V. The Survey Tests and Other Estimates of In- 
telligence 51 

VI. Educational Accomplishment and Mental Abil- 
ity 64 

PART II 
A GUIDE FOR THE USE OF THE SURVEY TESTS 

VII. Giving the Tests 81 

VIII. Scoring the Tests 91 

IX. Evaluating the Results 99 

Index 115 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIGURE PAGE 

1. The Digit-Symbol Test . 16 

2. The Symbol-Digit Test 18 

3. The Word Building Test 21 

4. The Opposites Test . 24 

5. The Cancellation Test 25 

6. Mental Indices by Grades .42 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

The measurement of the mentality of individu- 
als is now so customary and so well established, that 
the time seems ripe to extend the field of mental 
measurement to groups. The mental examination 
of an individual takes at least thirty minutes and 
often an hour or longer. This makes the measure- 
ment of large numbers an exceedingly slow and la- 
borious procedure. By the individual method a 
survey of all the children in an institution or in a 
school system is practically impossible. For this 
reason it would seem desirable to have survey tests 
whereby large numbers may be tested at the same 
time. In doing this we must bear in mind that we 
are sacrificing an accurate diagnosis of the individ- 
ual for an approximate estimate of the mentality of 
the group. 

Granted that this is feasible, it will be obvious at 
once that the mental survey may be put to good use 
in many ways. There are at least three different 
fields in which survey tests would seem to be of dis- 
tinct value, namely, (1) surveys for estimating 

3] 



4 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

feeblemindedness; (2) educational surveys; (3) so- 
cial surveys. 

1. Surveys for Estimating Feeblemindedness.— 
Here the survey tests will be used for purposes of 
preliminary classification of the inmates of an in- 
stitution. After such preliminary classification 
more intensive investigation of any particular group 
in the institution may be undertaken by individual 
tests. Since the problem is to select the feeble-, 
minded cases, the investigator will begin with those 
who made the poorest score on the survey tests and 
work upwards.^ Whether it is possible to diagnose 
feeblemindedness by means of survey tests alone 
will be discussed later. 

A need for survey tests of this nature has been 
felt by investigators in state surveys of feeblemind- 
edness. In such surveys the inmates of all the char- 
itable and correctional institutions can rarely be 
tested individually, and, therefore, the investigator 
is forced to give a rough guess at the number of 
feebleminded or be content with individual tests of 
a few inmates from which he may draw conclusions 
as to the mentality of the remainder. If standard- 
ized survey tests are available, the individuals re- 

1 Pintner, R., "The Mentality of the Dependent Child, Together 
with a Plan for a Mental Survey of an Institution." Jour, of. 
Ed. Psych., Vol. VIII, 3 (1917), 220-238. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

quiring special examination can be selected at once, 
and with mucli greater accuracy. 

2. Educational Surveys. — A second use of these 
survey tests consists in the classification of schools 
according to their mentality. Up to the present 
time this has never been attempted, but there can 
be no doubt of the desirability of such classification. 
That children in different schools differ in their men- 
tality is very obvious, and it would be very desir- 
able to measure this difference, so that the educa- 
tional work performed by a school could be evalu- 
ated in terms of the mentality of the children at- 
tending the school. If children in school A possess 
better mentality than children in school B, then 
school A ought to be doing better educational work 
than school B. An attempt to demonstrate how 
this can be done is shown in Chapter VI. 

This use of mental tests is bound to be of the 
greatest significance in the future. Mental tests 
and educational measurements have been develop- 
ing side by side and the method here advocated will 
prove to be the necessary link to connect the two 
and make the work of both of much greater signifi- 
cance. We must evaluate the results of our educa- 
tional tests in terms of mentality. 

3. Social Surveys.— A third use of survey tests 
is their use in connection with social surveys. A 
measure of the mentality of the community, how- 



6 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

ever rough this may be, cannot but be a distinct as- 
set to a social survey. For the present it would 
appear that we must estimate the mentality of a 
community from the mentality of its school popula- 
tion. That the mentality of the children in school 
will correspond closely to the mentality of the com- 
munity as a whole is a justifiable inference. Hav- 
ing obtained in this way a rough measure of the 
mentality of a community, it is bound to be of de- 
cided help in interpreting the conditions brought to 
light by the social survey. So far as the writer 
knows this has not yet been attempted.^ 

These three uses to which survey tests may be 
put, namely, in the institution, the school and the 
community, indicate a very wide field for this type of 
test if it proves to be at all feasible. The very na- 
ture of the work prescribes the type of test and the 
method of application. The individual scale with 
its long series of tests is at once seen to be imprac- 
ticable. Survey tests must be such as can be given 
to large groups at the same time and this neces- 
sarily involves writing on the part of the subject in 

2 An example of how this may be done has been indicated by 
the writer in a rough test of a small village community. Pintner, 
R., "A Mental Survey of the School Population of a Village," 
School and Society, Vol. V (May 19, 1917), 597-600. See also, 
Paterson, D. G., "A Mental Survey of the School Population of a 
Kansas Town," School and Society, Vol. VII (Jan. 19, 1918), 
84-89. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

some form or other. The number of tests that may 
be given is limited by the length of time during 
which the attention and interest of a group can be 
held. It would not seem desirable to allow the ex- 
amination to extend over a longer period than two 
hours and preferably not so long. Generally this 
is longer than the ordinary individual examination, 
but in giving group tests a certain period of the 
time is consumed by the distribution and collection 
of test blanks and by the instructions of the exam- 
iner. This serves to break up the period and allows 
a certain amount of relaxation. 

In all the work that follows it must be constantly 
borne in mind that the results of a few survey tests 
can never give as accurate an estimate of the men- 
tality of an individual as the results obtained from 
a standard scale for individual measurement, such 
as the Binet or the Yerkes Scales. 

There are a great many sources of error that en- 
ter into the examination of a group of individuals, 
so that we are never justified in considering the re- 
sult of a series of survey tests as being an accurate 
measure of an individual's mentality. The exam- 
iner can never be certain of the undivided attention 
of all the individuals in the group, as he can make 
certain of the undivided attention of the single ex- 
aminee. Physical discomfort, illness, laziness, bad 
temper, or fear may exist in a member of the group 



8 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

and remain undetected, and in so far as such dis- 
tractions from efficient mental work exist, survey 
tests fail to measure accurately mental ability. 
Again chances of copying from other individuals in 
the group, or working after the signal to stop has 
been given cannot always be detected. So we may 
have some individuals doing poorer than their men- 
tality warrants and other individuals doing better 
than their mentality warrants. With large numbers 
these two sources of error may to some extent coun- 
terbalance each other. It would seem to the writer 
from actual observation that on the whole these dis- 
tractions do not often occur and, if they do, they 
affect such a small number of the group as not ma- 
terially to affect the measurement of the mentality 
of the group as a whole. Survey tests are not in- 
tended for accurate individual estimates of intelli- 
gence, but rather for rough measurements of the 
mentality of groups. 

The discussion of the survey tests which follows 
is divided into two parts. 

Part I describes the tests, omitting, however, all 
reference to procedure and scoring. It further 
gives an account of the standardization of the tests 
and the results of some schools and groups of in- 
dividuals tested. It further attempts to show the 
method of evaluating the educational achievement 



INTRODUCTION g 

of schools in terms of the mentality of the schools 
as determined by the survey tests. 

Part II is a guide for the use of the tests. Here 
we have attempted to describe the procedure in the 
order required by the worker making the survey, 
namely, method of giving the tests, scoring, evalu- 
ating the results. In this part will be found all 
the tables of norms that the worker will require. 



PAET I 
THE TESTS AND THEIR STANDARDIZATION 



CHAPTER II 

THE TESTS 

This chapter contains a description of the tests 
used together with a brief account of the work of 
others with the same tests. 

Test I Rote Memoey Test 

This test is one of immediate memory for serial 
impressions. The presentation is auditory and the 
response is made in writing. The words used and 
the procedure followed are given in Part II of this 
book. The words chosen are those used by Pyle.^ 
Only the first list of concrete words has been used. 
The same method of scoring has been adopted and 
this allows a comparison of Pyle 's average score at 
each age with the median score at each age ob- 
tained by the writer. It will be noted that Pyle 
keeps the results for the two sexes apart, giving 
averages at each age for boys and for girls. In the 
present work this has not been done because sex 
differences in these tests are too slight to justify 

3 Pyle, W. H., "The Examination of School Children" (Mac- 
millan, 1913). 

13 



14 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

separate norms for boys and girls. It seemed, 
therefore, better to mass all the results together. 

No. of 
Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Ad. Cases 

Boya, Av 31 32 36 38 38 38 40 40 43 46 49 44 

Pyle 990 

Girls, Av 33 33 40 38 39 40 44 42 43 41 52 48 

Pintner, Med 25 31 34 38 41 43 44 43 45 .. .. 56 3,392 

Pyle's norms for the younger ages are much 
higher than ours, suggesting a rather more select 
group of eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds. The 
eight-year-olds are probably the brighter, more ac- 
celerated children in the higher classes. Our medi- 
ans show a more uniform tendency to increase from 
age to age. No other work with exactly the same 
list of words as used by Pyle is known to the writer, 
although tests of rote memory with very similar 
lists are numerous, and for these the reader must 
be referred to Whipple.* 

Test II Digit-Symbol Test 

This is one of the group of tests called ^'substi- 
tution tests.'' Like all of this class of tests it is 
essentially a learning test. It measures the rapid- 
ity with which new associations can be built up. The 
subject copies symbols which correspond to the 
nine digits, the symbols and digits being before him 

* Whipple, G. M., "Manual of Mental and Physical Tests," 
Part II; p. 150 et seq. 



THE TESTS 15 

all the time, that is, he substitutes one thing for an- 
other. Because the key is always in front of him, 
he is not compelled to memorize the symbols before 
starting to work nor to rely upon his memory dur- 
ing the work. He is, in fact, told to start copying at 
once and is not allowed to waste time trying to 
memorize. The quicker he is able to form the as- 
sociations between the symbols and digits, the less 
often will he be required to glance up at the key and 
therefore the quicker he will be able to w^ork. The 
test is evidently testing something that is funda- 
mental in all learning, i. e., the ability to form new 
associations. A picture of the test is shown in 
Figure 1. This picture is a reproduction of the 
blank used. The actual measurements of the blank, 
excluding the white iliargin, are 5% x 9% inches. 

Work with this test has been reported by Whip- 
ple and by Pyle.^ Pintner and Paterson have used 
this test extensively with deaf ^ subjects. Our best 
comparison is again with the norms obtained by 

Pyle. 

Here again our norms increase more uniformly 

^ Whipple, G. M., op. cit., Vol. II, 133 et seq. 

Pyle, W. H., "The Examination of School Children"; and "The 
Mind of the Negro Child," ScJiool and Society, Vol. I (1915), 
357. 

® Pintner, R., and Paterson, D. G., "Learning Tests with Deaf 
Children," Psych. Review Monographs, Vol. XX, whole No. 88 
(Feb., 1916). 



©©(DO)© 
©©©© 



84.976 












27.516 












79.821 












33.821 












63,442 












97,473 












21.629 












62.978 












57.183 












31.542 












32.761 












17.143 












95.146 












26.981 












28.349 












35,724 












73.862 












16.315 












91.563 












14.923 












37.628 












34.762 












42.916 












28.543 












23.729 












83.936 












85.652 












75.314 












35.486 












56.283 












29.635 












19,175 












72.518 












36,293 












24.631 












85.746 












19352 












15,283 












76.431 












24,976 













Figure 1. The Digit-Symbol Test. 
16 



THE TESTS I7 

No. of 
Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Ad. Cases 

Boys, Av 10 13 15 16 19 23 21 25 25 24 29 29 

Pyle 1,124 

Girls, Av 13 16 19 19 23 23 27 27 28 29 26 32 

Pintner, Med 7 11 14 16 18 21 24 25 25 . . . . 30 3,609 

from age to age than do the norms of Pyle. Our 
norms at every age are lower than Pyle 's, decidedly 
so at ages eight and nine. Again there is the sug- 
gestion of a more select group of younger children 
in Pyle's standardization. 

Test III Symbol-Digit Test 

This test is of the same type as the Digit-Symbol 
Test, only in this case the subject inserts the digits 
instead of the symbols as in the previous case. A 
picture of the test is shown in Figure 2. This pic- 
ture is a direct reproduction of the blank used by 
us. The actual measurements are 7% x 9% inches. 
It will be noted on the picture that the asterisk is 
not clearly printed the first few times that it ap- 
pears. This is also true of the printing on the ac- 
tual blanks used, due to a slight defect of the cut 
from which the blanks were printed. No explana- 
tions were given to the children about this defective 
printing and they were left to their own devices in 
regard to it. If the child omitted to insert the digit 
'^2'Mn the first space and by so doing misplaced the 
next four digits only one error was counted. This 



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V n / [ -4- 












] < • > -^ 












D 1 V • > 












/ -^ D [ V 












V [ D / -J- 












• > V / H- 












< • V [ < 












a [ ] V • 












/ > -^ • 1 












1 < > / D 












r J V < -> 












t n • V > 












n • / [ > 












< / 1 t V 












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] V < / [ 












-5- > C V 1 












D -H > • V 












I »< D V / 












< '^ ] t / 













Figure 2. The Symbol-Digit Test. 



18 



THE TESTS 19 

will become clearer from a discussion of the method 
of scoring in Part II of this book. 

Kesults with this test have been reported by 
Pyle ^ for school children, and by Pintner and Pat- 
erson ^ for deaf children. Our best comparison is 
again with the results of Pyle ; — 

No. of 
Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Ad. Case9 

Boys, Av.... 10 13 17 18 19 21 23 26 28 26 28 33 

Pyle 1.380 

Girls, Av 11 16 20 20 23 26 27 30 29 32 33 31 

Pintner. Med 6 11 14 16 18 21 23 24 23 . . . . 31 3,622 

The comparison shows the same tendency as in 
the Digit-Symbol Test, namely the tendency for our 
norms to be slightly lower, particularly in the 
lower ages, and for our norms to increase more uni- 
formly from age to age than Pyle's norms. 

Test IV Wobd Building Test 

This test is grouped by Whipple under tests of 
imagination and invention. In regard to it, he says, 
''It is one that calls for ingenuity and active at- 
tention ; it might fairly be said to demand that abil- 
ity to combine isolated fragments into a whole, 
which Ebbinghaus has declared to be the essence of 
intelligence, . . . and finally, its execution is con- 
ditioned to a certain extent by the richness and 
readiness of the examinee ^s word vocabulary.*^ 

^ Pyle, W. H., op. cit. 

® Pintner, R., and Paterson, D. G., op. cit. 



20 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

Of the two standard series of letters in common 
use, namely a e o b m t and a e i r 1 p, we have used 
the aeirlp-test only. Our blank has the letters 
A E I E L P printed at the top, as shown in Figure 
3. Nothing else was printed on the sheet. The 
measurements of the blank are 8% x 11 inches. 

Considerable work with this test has already been 
reported, in particular by Whipple,^ Pyle ^^ and An- 
derson.^^ A comparison of our medians with the 
averages computed by Whipple from the data of 
Anderson and Pyle is as follows : — • 



























No. of 


Age 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


Ad. Cases 


Anderson, Boys, Av. . 


..6 


7 


8 


10 


11 


13 


14 


16 


17 


19 


16 


22 


and 
























2,088 


Pyle, J Girls, Av. . . 


. 7 


8 


10 


12 


13 


15 


16 


17 


18 


18 


19 


21 


Pintner, Med 


3 


4 


5 


6 


8 


9 


10 


11 


11 




. , 


18 3,462 



The comparison of the norms in this case shows 
that our medians are consistently much lower than 
the norms of Anderson and Pyle. Both sets of 
norms show a uniform tendency to increase from 
age to age. The ditference in the norms is very 
great. The median performance of our fifteen and 
sixteen year olds is only equal to the average per- 
formance of the eleven or twelve year olds of the 
other workers. This difference in the norms must 

9 Whipple, G. M., "Vocabulary and Word Building Tests," Psy- 
chological Review, Vol. XV (1908), 94-105. 

10 Pyle, W. H., op. cit. 

11 Anderson, E. J. Reported by Whipple, G. M., "Manual of 
Mental and Physical Tests," Vol. II, 274 et seq. 



A E I R L P 



FiGLTiE 3. The Word Building Test. 
21 



22 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

be due either to the fact that the children tested by 
Anderson and by Pyle were much superior to the 
children tested by us or to the fact that the method 
of scoring differed greatly in the two investiga- 
tions. The children tested by us, as will appear 
later, were in the main children from three fairly 
good and one average city school, together with a 
number of children from village schools, that is, by 
no means inferior children. We have no informa- 
tion in regard to the children tested by Anderson 
and by Pyle. In regard to the method of scoring, 
credit was given in this investigation for 59 words 
(see Part II), whereas the number of words admit- 
ted by Anderson and Pyle according to Whipple's 
list is 76. Nineteen words admitted by Anderson 
and Pyle are not admitted by us. These are as fol- 
lows: — ai, al, ar, aril, ea, ela, epi, eria, la, lepra, 
lerp, lira, pali, parel, pi, ra, re, rei, rep. Two words 
admitted by us and not found in Whipple's list are 
— peri, pirl. The nineteen words not admitted by 
us are all extremely uncommon words and in our 
experience words that occurred very rarely in the 
test papers. It is doubtful whether this slight dif- 
ference in the words allowed credit would explain 
the striking difference in the norms. 



THE TESTS 23 

Test V Opposites Test 

This test is placed by Whipple in the group of 
association tests. It is, moreover, a test of con- 
trolled in contradistinction to free association. 
There are numerous forms of controlled association 
tests, and the Opposites Test is one type of such 
tests. There are nine lists of opposites given by 
Whipple. The list used in these experiments is 
shown in Figure 4. The actual measurements of 
the blank are about 3% x 7% inches, exclusive of 
margin. This list is one of the oldest and has been 
used by Thorndike, Simpson, Norsworthy and 
Pyle. 

Our results may be best compared with those of 
Pyle as the words used and the procedure in giving 
the test were in both cases the same : — 

No. of 
Age 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Ad. Cases 

Boys, Av 9 8 8 11 12 15 15 16 17 20 22 22 

Pyle 1,262 

Girls, Av 8 8 11 11 14 15 17 17 19 21 23 23 

Pintner, Med 4 7 8 10 12 14 15 15 15 . . ..20 3,452 

The same general tendency for our norms to be 
lower is shown in this test, although the difference 
is not nearly so great as it was in the last test. The 
discrepancy is very great at age eight. 

Test VI Cancellation" Test 

This test is classified by Whipple under tests of 
attention and perception. A great deal of work 



OPPOSITES TEST 

1. good 

2. outside 

3. quick 

4. tall 

5. big 

6. loud 

7. white 

8. light 

9. happy..... 

10. false 

11. like ...: 

12. rich 

13. sick 

14. glad 

15. thin 

16. empty 

17. war..... 

18. many 

19. above 

20. friend 

Name 

Age Grade..-. Sex.. 

Figure 4. The Opposites Test. 
24 



THE TESTS 25 

has been done with many different forms of can- 
cellation test and the reader must be referred to 
Whipple 's Manual of Mental and Physical Tests for 
a complete account of the history and bibliography 
of this test, together with a description of the vari- 
ous forms of cancellation blank in common use. 

OYKFIUDBHTAGDAACDIXAMRPAGQZTACVAOWALYX 

WABTHAJJANEEFXAMEAOBSVASKAIBLPHANRNPKAZI 

YRQAQEAXJUDFOAIMWZSAUCGVAOABMAYDYAZJDA 

JACINEVBGAOFHARPVEJCTQZAPJLEQWNAHRBUASR 

SNZMWAWHACAXHXQAXTDPUTYGSKGRKVLAGKAMX 

FUOFAKYAFGTMBLYZJAAVAUACXDATVDACJSIUFMQ 

TXWAMQEAKHAOPXZWCAmBRZNSOQAQLMDGUSGBO 

AKNAPLPAHYOAEKALNVFARJAEHNAPWIBAYAQRKA 

lUPDSHAQGHTAMZAQGMTPlNURQNXJEOWYACREJDZ 

DOLAJOCAKSZAUAFAERFAWAFZAWXBAVHAMBATAI 

KVSTVNAPLAILAOXYSJUOVYIVPAPSDANLKRQAOJLE 

GAQYEMPAZANTIBXGAIMRUSAWZAZWXAMXBDXAJZI 

EACNABAHGDVSVFTCLAYKUAKCWAFRWHTQYAFAOI 

Figure 5. The Cancellation Test. 

The form of cancellation blank used in this work 
is known as the A-test and a copy of the blank is 
shown in Figure 5. The measurements exclusive 
of margin, etc., are 4% x 3% inches. No age norms 
with this particular form of the test are known to 
the writer, and therefore, no comparison with the 
norms obtained in this investigation can be made. 



26 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

Of the six survey tests used, this test seems to 
the writer to be least satisfactory. Although, on 
the whole, some correlation of ability in this test 
with general intelligence is reported by most work- 
ers, it is not very high, and this is the general im- 
pression gained by the writer in his work with this 
test. 

Educational Tests.— Work with two educational 
tests is reported in Chapter VI, and they may be 
briefly mentioned here. 

Tkabue Language Scale B 

This is one of the language scales constructed by 
Trabue.^^ The tentative standards proposed by 
Trabue are here compared with our results: — 





















Uni- No. 


Grade 


I 


II 


III 


IV 


V 


VI 


VII VIII 


IX 


versity Cases 


Trabue, Med .... 


. . 


3 


6 


8 


10 


11 


12 13 


14 





Pintner, Med. . . . 


.. 4 


6 


8 


10 


11 


12 


13 13 


14 


18 1,442 



Our norms, it will be noted, are higher for all 
grades, except grades eight and nine. Trabue 's 
medians are estimated medians not based upon the 
application of Scale B, as an independent scale, to 
any group of school children. 

12 Trabue, M. R., "Completion Test Language Scales," Teach- 
ers' College Contributions to Education, No. 77 (1916). 



THE TESTS 27 

CouKTis Akithmetic Tests 

The amount of work done with these tests is so 
great that it would be futile to attempt any descrip- 
tion or summary of it in this book. Furthermore, 
the use of these tests in this work is only inciden- 
tal. They have been used to show how educational 
achievement may be interpreted in the light of the 
mentality of the children. 

The Courtis Standard Tests, Arithmetic, Series 
B, were the tests used. 



CHAPTEE III 

THE COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 

The number of children tested by the six survey 
tests varies somewhat for each test. This is due 
to the fact that owing to various circumstances all 
the tests could not always be given to all the chil- 
dren. For this reason the total number tested on 
each test, and the number at each age varies from 
test to test. This variation in the number is not 
due to any attempt to exclude specific individuals 
(e.g., defective children), because the attempt was 
always made to test all the children in a grade or in 
a school. 

After the papers had been scored as explained 
in Part II of this book, tables of distribution for 
each test for each age were made. These tables 
are too extended to publish here and a description 
of them must suffice. All the tables showed each 
unit of the score. All the tests, except two, the 
Digit-Symbol and the Symbol-Digit, are scored with- 
out the use of fractions, and therefore the tables of 
distribution showed each step in the method of scor- 
ing. The table of distribution for the Eote Memory 

28 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 29 

Test showed each step from to 66 (the highest 
score) ; the table for the Opposites from to 20 
(the highest score) ; and so on. In the case of the 
Digit-Symbol and Symbol-Digit tests fractions were 
disregarded in the tables of distribution, i. e., the 
fractions were simply omitted and the whole num- 
ber (not necessarily the nearest) taken. 

Furthermore, the tables of distribution were pro- 
gressive, in the sense that they showed the addition 
of each new set of tests. At the same time the per- 
centiles for each addition to the distribution were 
calculated. In this way the distribution tables show 
the effect of each additional set of results on the 
percentile norms. This method was adopted so that 
some idea might be obtained as to when a satisfac- 
tory standardization had been reached. The less 
the percentiles are changed by additions to the data, 
the more likely is it that we have attained a satis- 
factory standardization. The additions to the data 
were not equal, so that we cannot claim that the se- 
ries of percentiles calculated for each age repre- 
sented equal additions or equal percentages of the 
first set of cases. The additions to the data from 
time to time were very unequal and were deter- 
mined by the number of new cases that happened to 
be tested from time to time. 

At most ages there were five or six additions to 
the original data, so that we have five or six sets of 



30 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

percentiles. An inspection of the variation of these 
percentiles gives some idea of the adequacy of the 
standardization. If the variation is slight and 
shows a tendency to decrease, we may assume that 
the standardization is becoming more and more ade- 
quate. Because of the great amount of space re- 
quired to print all these percentiles, we have de- 
cided merely to show three at each age, regardless 
of the fact that progression from one set of percen- 
tiles to the other may represent very varying addi- 
tions at different ages. Three series of percentiles 
taken at three different stages in the standardiza- 
tion will give some idea of the adequacy of the 
standardization. 

Tables 1 to 6 show the three series of percentiles 
at each percentile point for each age for the six 
tests. The first figure shows the percentile calcu- 
lated for the first set of tests, the second the per- 
centiles at about the middle of the standardization 
and the third the percentiles for the data tabulated 
up to the present time. Table 1 is to be read as fol- 
lows: — on the Eote Memory Test for age seven 
(third vertical column) the 100 percentile or highest 
score for the first set of data was 39, after the addi- 
tion of the second set it was still 39, and after the 
addition of the third set 39. In other words no 
change occurred in the 100 percentile. The first set 
of data as can be seen from the bottom row, headed 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 



31 



TABLE 1 
Rote Memory Test — Percentiles 



Age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


Ad. 


Percentile 


























29 


39 


45 


50 


54 


61 


59 


59 


56 


58 


59 




100 


34 


39 


47 


56 


60 


61 


59 


64 


62 


66 


59 






34 


39 


49 


56 


60 


61 


66 


64 


62 


66 


59 


64 




14 


29 


33 


40 


44 


46 


48 


52 


53 


53 


54 




90 


18 


29 


36 


41 


45 


48 


50 


52 


55 


52 


54 






18 


29 


36 


41 


45 


48 


50 


52 


54 


53 


52 


62 




11 


25 


31 


37 


41 


44 


45 


48 


47 


49 


52 




80 


12 


25 


32 


38 


42 


45 


47 


49 


52 


49 


52 






12 


25 


32 


38 


42 


45 


47 


49 


51 


49 


50 


58 




6 


21 


28 


35 


39 


41 


44 


46 


44 


45 


52 




70 


7 


22 


29 


35 


40 


42 


45 


47 


49 


47 


48 






6 


23 


29 


35 


40 


42 


45 


47 


49 


47 


47 


57 




4 


19 


26 


32 


37 


39 


41 


43 


43 


44 


49 




60 


4 


19 


27 


34 


38 


40 


42 


45 


46 


45 


47 






4 


20 


27 


33 


37 


40 


43 


45 


45 


• 45 


47 


56 




3 


16 


23 


30 


34 


37 


40 


40 


42 


42 


47 




50 


4 


17 


25 


32 


35 


38 


41 


43 


44 


43 


45 






3 


18 


25 


31 


34 


38 


41 


43 


44 


43 


45 


56 




3 


13 


21 


27 


32 


36 


38 


39 


39 


38 


47 




40 


3 


13 


22 


29 


32 


36 


39 


40 


42 


41 


44 






2 


14 


22 


28 


32 


36 


39 


40 


42 


41 


42 


55 




2 


9 


17 


25 


29 


33 


36 


36 


38 


36 


45 




30 


2 


10 


18 


26 


30 


33 


37 


39 


40 


39 


42 






2 


11 


18 


26 


30 


33 


36 


38 


40 


40 


41 


51 




1 


6 


12 


22 


26 


31 


34 


34 


35 


33 


45 




20 


1 


6 


13 


23 


27 


31 


34 


36 


38 


37 


40 









7 


14 


23 


27 


31 


34 


35 


38 


37 


38 


50 







3 


6 


17 


19 


27 


30 


29 


32 


29 


42 




10 





3 


6 


18 


21 


28 


31 


32 


35 


33 


34 









3 


7 


18 


21 


27 


29 


32 


35 


32 


36 


46 













3 


6 


17 


20 


24 


14 


25 


28 
















1 





1 


13 


14 


14 


25 


28 















1 





1 


9 


14 


14 


25 


28 


37 




121 


291 


291 


220 


195 


156 


118 


96 


65 


25 


13 




Totals 


124 


346 


379 


320 


311 


279 


231 


275 


190 


89 


37 






132 


394 


442 


416 


391 


347 


311 


351 


331 


179 


60 


38 



32 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 2 
Digit-Symbol Test — Percentiles 



Age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


Ad. 


Percentile 




























13 


17 


17 


21 


25 


27 


32 


32 


36 


38 


32 




100 


13 


19 


17 


25 


26 


27 


34 


40 


36 


38 


38 






14 


20 


25 


25 


26 


33 


34 


40 


38. 


39 


40 


50 




5 


11 


12 


16 


20 


22 


23 


24 


25 


29 


28 




90 


4 


10 


12 


16 


20 


22 


25 


30 


29 


30 


32 






4 


11 


13 


17 


20 


22 


25 


29 


30 


32 


33 


39 




2 


9 


10 


14 


18 


20 


21 


23 


23 


27 


26 




80 





9 


11 


14 


18 


20 


23 


26 


27 


28 


30 









9 


11 


15 


18 


20 


23 


26 


28 


29 


31 


37 







8 


9 


13 


16 


" 19 


20 


21 


22 


25 


24 




70 





7 


9 


13 


17 


19 


21 


24 


25 


27 


27 









8 


10 


14 


17 


19 


21 


24 


27 


27 


28 


34 







5 


8 


11 


14 


17 


19 


20 


20 


24 


23 




60 





5 


8 


11 


15 


17 


20 


23 


23 


25 


26 









6 


9 


12 


16 


18 


20 


23 


25 


26 


26 


32 







3 


6 


9 


13 


15 


17 


19 


18 


23 


21 




50 





3 


7 


10 


14 


16 


19 


21 


22 


24 


25 









4 


7 


11 


14 


16 


18 


21 


24 


25 


25 


30 







0.5 


4 


8 


12 


14 


16 


17 


17 


21 


20 




40 





0.9 


5 


9 


13 


15 


17 


20 


20 


23 


24 









1 


6 


10 


13 


15 


17 


20 


22 


23 


24 


29 










0.6 


7 


9 


13 


14 


17 


16 


20 


18 




30 








2.1 


8 


11 


13 


15 


18 


18 


21 


21 












3.0 


8 


11 


13 


15 


18 


20 


21 


22 


28 













5 


7 


10 


12 


15 


15 


19 


16 




20 











6 


9 


11 


13 


16 


16 


19 


18 












0.1 


6 


9 


11 


13 


16 


18 


20 


20 


27 













0.4 


3 


4 


7 


5 


3 


16 


15 




10 











0.7 


3 


8 


9 


13 


14 


15 


16 















0.8 


4 


8 


10 


13 


15 


16 


16 


25 
















































































































20 



124 275 296 219 197 153 115 95 65 89 38 
Totals 166 336 384 315 312 235 229 275 193 173 82 

175 387 449 409 391 347 308 356 367 231 114 75 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 



33 



TABLE 3 

Symbol-Digit Test — Percentiles 



Age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


Ad. 


Percentile 




























13 


19 


20 


24 


29 


32 


30 


37 


40 


39 


41 




100 


13 


19 


20 


24 


29 


34 


36 


40 


44 


39 


41 






13 


19 


20 


26 


29 


34 


38 


40 


45 


39 


41 


53 




3 


9 


12 


17 


21 


23 


24 


28 


25 


30 


31 




90 


3 


9 


13 


17 


21 


24 


26 


30 


32 


31 


33 






3 


9 


13 


18 


21 


24 


27 


30 


32 


32 


33 


40 







7 


10 


15 


18 


20 


21 


24 


21 


27 


28 




80 





7 


10 


15 


19 


21 


23 


27 


29 


28 


29 









7 


11 


16 


19 


21 


23 


27 


29 


29 


29 


38 







6 


8 


12 


16 


19 


19 


22 


19 


26 


28 




70 





6 


9 


13 


17 


19 


21 


24 


27 


27 


28 









6 


9 


14 


17 


19 


21 


24 


27 


27 


28 


35 







4 


7 


11 


14 


17 


18 


21 


18 


24 


23 




60 





4 


7 


12 


15 


17 


19 


23 


25 


25 


26 









5 


8 


12 


15 


18 


19 


23 


25 


25 


26 


33 







3 


6 


9 


13 


16 


16 


18 


16 


22 


22 




50 





3 


6 


10 


13 


16 


18 


22 


22 


24 


22 









3 


6 


11 


14 


16 


18 


21 


23 


24 


23 


31 







0.4 


4 


8 


11 


15 


15 


17 


15 


22 


20 




40 





0.9 


4 


8 


12 


15 


16 


20 


21 


22 


22 









1.0 


5 


9 


12 


15 


16 


20 


21 


22 


22 


29 










1 


6 


10 


13 


13 


16 


13 


20 


18 




30 








2 


7 


10 


13 


14 


19 


20 


21 


19 












3 


8 


11 


13 


15 


18 


21 


21 


21 


28 













4 


7 


11 


10 


14 


12 


18 


14 




20 











4 


7 


11 


12 


17 


18 


18 


15 















5 


8 


11 


12 


17 


18 


19 


16 


26 













0.9 


4 


7 


7 


11 


10 


15 


5 




10 











1 


4 


8 


8 


14 


15 


16 


11 















1 


5 


8 


9 


14 


14 


16 


12 


23 
















































































































14 



123 275 297 217 196 150 123 94 64 90 39 

Totals 165 310 388 316 312 273 239 272 298 175 84 

174 390 454 408 391 341 319 354 363 238 113 



77 



^S4> 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 4 
Word Building Test — Percentiles 



Age 6 



9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 



Percentile 

100 



90 



80 



70 



60 



50 



40 



30 



20 



10 





























11 

13 
13 

4 
4 
5 

3 
3 
3 

2 
2 
3 

1 
2 

2 

1 
1 
1 


1 
1 



















11 
11 
11 

6 
6 

7 

4 
5 
5 

4 
4 
4 

3 
3 
3 

2 

3 
3 

2 
2 
2 



15 
15 
15 



6 
6 

7 

5 
5 
6 

4 
5 
5 

4 
4 

4 

3 
3 
3 

2 
2 
3 

2 

2 
2 

1 
1 
1 







17 20 
17 20 
20 20 



11 
10 
10 

9 



6 
6 
6 

6 
6 
5 

4 
4 
4 

4 
4 
4 

2 
3 
3 

1 
1 
1 







13 
13 
13 

10 
10 
11 



6 
6 
6 

5 
6 
6 

5 
5 
5 

3 

4 
3 

2 
2 
2 







18 21 17 14 

19 30 29 26 
27 30 29 26 



14 
14 
14 

11 
12 
12 



9 9 
9 10 
9 10 



13 
16 
16 

11 
14 
13 

10 
12 
12 



11 
11 

7 

10 

9 



12 
16 
16 

10 
14 
14 

9 
12 
12 

8 
11 
11 

7 

9 

10 



6 6 

8 8 
8 9 



5 

7 
7 

4 
6 
6 

2 
4 
4 







10 
16 
17 

9 
14 
15 

8 
12 
13 

7 
11 
12 

6 
11 
11 

6 

9 

10 



21 
24 
25 

14 
17 

18 

13 
14 
14 

12 
13 
13 

11 
12 
12 

9 
10 
11 



98 287 295 219 199 152 118 96 64 21 

Totals 101 344 387 316 311 277 229 275 195 149 

109 391 451 410 393 344 311 354 356 215 



4 
9 
9 

3 

6 

7 

1 

3 
4 





14 
56 

89 



35 



25 



23 



21 



19 



18 



5 
9 
9 18 



17 



16 



14 



11 



39 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 



35 



TABLE 5 
Opposites Test — Percentiles 



Age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


Ad. 


Percentile 




























5 


19 


17 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


19 


20 


20 




100 


5 


19 


17 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 




5 


19 


17 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 


20 







7 


8 


10 


18 


15 


15 


16 


16 


16 


15 




90 


1 


6 


9 


11 


16 


15 


17 


19 


19 


19 


19 


20 




1 


6 


9 


11 


15 


15 


17 


19 


19 


19 


20 


20 







5 


7 


9 


13 


13 


14 


15 


15 


14 


14 




80 





5 


7 


9 


13 


13 


16 


17 


18 


18 


17 


20 







5 


7 


9 


12 


13 


16 


17 


18 


18 


19 


20 







3 


6 


8 


11 


.11 


13 


14 


13 


13 


13 




70 





3 


6 


8 


11 


12 


15 


16 


17 


16 


16 


20 







4 


6 


8 


11 


12 


14 


16 


17 


16 


17 


20 







2 


5 


7 


9 


10 


11 


13 


13 


12 


12 




60 





2 


5 


7 


9 


10 


13 


15 


16 


16 


15 


20 







2 


5 


8 


9 


11 


13 


15 


16 


16 


16 


20 







2 


4 


6 


8 


9 


10 


12 


12 


11 


10 




50 





1 


4 


6 


8 


9 


12 


15 


15 


15 


14 


20 







2 


4 


7 


8 


10 


12 


14 


15 


15 


15 


20 







1 


2 


5 


7 


8 


9 


11 


11 


10 


10 




40 





1 


2 


5 


7 


8 


10 


13 


14 


14 


13 


19 







1 


3 


6 


7 


9 


10 


13 


14 


14 


14 


20 










1 


3 


6 


7 


9 


9 


10 


8 


9 




30 








1 


4 


6 


7 


9 


12 


13 


13 


12 


19 










2 


5 


7 


8 


9 


12 


13 


13 


13 


19 













1 


5 


6 


8 


7 


9 


7 


7 




20 











2 


5 


6 


9 


10 


12 


11 


11 


19 










1 


3 


5 


6 


8 


10 


12 


12 


11 


19 
















2 


4 


6 


6 


5 


6 


7 




10 














2 


4 


7 


8 


10 


9 


9 


18 













1 


2 


4 


7 


7 


10 


9 


10 


18 




























2 


4 


6 































1 





6 


13 


































2 


13 




94 


277 


296 


219 


196 


156 


120 


94 


67 


25 


13 




Totals 


96 


338 


386 


310 


306 


262 


225 


272 


306 


156 


54 


43 




104 


388 


453 


399 


384 


332 


305 


340 


356 


223 


86 


82 



36 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 6 
Cancellation Test — Percentiles 



Age 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


Ad. 


Percentile 




























' 73 


48 


76 


97 


69 


65 


84 


98 


81 


78 


73 




100 


73 


57 


76 


97 


86 


86 


92 


98 


100 


99 


97 


89 




73 


78 


76 


97 


86 


86 


92 


98 


100 


99 


97 


89 




27 


33 


38 


42 


49 


47 


59 


60 


64 


65 


69 




90 


27 


33 


38 


43 


51 


53 


64 


72 


73 


76 


77 


82 




27 


37 


39 


43 


49 


56 


64 


70 


73 


76 


77 


78 




23 


29 


34 


37 


42 


45 


51 


55 


55 


57 


64 




80 


23 


29 


34 


37 


46 


47 


59 


63 


65 


68 


71 


69 




23 


31 


35 


38 


45 


48 


59 


62 


65 


68 


71 


69 




20 


27 


32 


34 


37 


42 


47 


50 


50 


52 


60 




70 


20 


27 


32 


34 


39 


44 


53 


58 


61 


63 


67 


65 




20 


28 


32 


35 


40 


44 


53 


57 


61 


63 


67 


66 




18 


25 


29 


32 


35 


39 


42 


48 


49 


49 


57 




60 


18 


25 


29 


31 


37 


41 


49 


55 


57 


61 


61 


62 




18 


26 


29 


32 


37 


41 


49 


54 


57 


61 


61 


64 




16 


23 


27 


30 


34 


37 


38 


46 


46 


46 


54 




50 


16 


23 


27 


30 


35 


38 


46 


51 


53 


56 


59 


60 




16 


25 


28 


31 


35 


39 


45 


50 


53 


56 


59 


61 




14 


21 


25 


28 


32 


36 


37 


42 


42 


44 


50 




40 


14 


21 


26 


28 


33 


36 


42 


49 


51 


53 


54 


5^ 




14 


22 


26 


29 


33 


36 


41 


48 


50 


53 


56 


56 
9 




12 


19 


23 


26 


30 


32 


34 


38 


38 


42 


47 


30 


13 


18 


24 


26 


31 


34 


38 


46 


48 


49 


50 


54 




13 


19 


24 


27 


31 


34 


38 


45 


48 


49 


51 


53 




9 


16 


20 


23 


28 


31 


32 


36 


35 


38 


45 




20 


10 


16 


21 


23 


28 


32 


35 


42 


45 


46 


48 


50 




10 


17 


21 


24 


29 


32 


35 


40 


44 


46 


49 


50 







11 


17 


20 


26 


27 


28 


34 


30 


29 


39 




10 





11 


18 


20 


24 


29 


31 


36 


38 


41 


42 


46 







12 


18 


21 


26 


29 


30 


35 


37 


41 


46 


46 
















8 


13 


7 


26 


14 


27 


38 































13 


27 





39 




























13 


27 





28 



127 280 303 191 175 133 98 82 43 21 11 
Totals 169 338 392 281 279 247 208 256 280 167 78 46 
177 385 460 368 358 315 292 333 342 228 109 85 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 37 

^^ totals," included 291 cases, the second set added 
55 cases, making a total of 346, and the third set 
added 48 cases, making a total of 394. At age eight 
the 100 percentile starts with a score of 45 and 
changes to 47 and then to 49. The 90 percentile for 
the eight-year-olds starts with a score of 33, then 
changes to 36, at which it remains. The 70 percen- 
tile starts with 28 and then changes to 29 at which 
point it remains stationary. These three series of 
percentiles for the eight-year-olds are calculated 
from 291, 379 and 442 cases. The other tables are 
to be interpreted in the same way. 

At most ages each new percentile represents 
roughly the addition of one hundred cases. This is 
not so at the upper and lower ages in which fewer 
cases were tested. Age six shows the addition of 
very few cases after the original set, owing to the 
fact that it was then realized that the six tests were 
not well adapted to six-year-olds. Ages fifteen and 
sixteen show a falling off in the number of cases as 
contrasted with the other ages and the standardiza- 
tion for these two ages is far less reliable than for 
the other ages. This is borne out by an inspection of 
the percentiles. They are more variable for these 
ages than for the other ages. It will be noted that 
the last column shows a small group of adults tested 
on each of the tests. These adults are university 
students and the percentile scores are not meant to 



38 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

be representative for adults in general. They are 
merely added for the purpose of comparison in re- 
gard to what a group of superior adults can accom- 
plish on the tests. The percentiles are in general 
decidedly higher than the percentiles for the chil- 
dren. This is, however, not true in every single 
case, as in the Cancellation and Opposites Tests. 

Without claiming that the standardization here of- 
fered is perfect, we may say that it has at least 
reached a stage where the results may be used for 
the purpose of mental surveys without making them 
subject to very great error. 

The total number of individuals included in the 
data reported here is as follows: — 

Rote Memory Test . 3392 

Digit-Symbol Test 3609 

Symbol-Digit Test 3622 

Word Building Test 3462 

Opposites Test 3452 

Cancellation Test 3452 

In Part II percentile tables for actual use in work- 
ing with the tests are given. These tables give the 
last percentile calculated from the data tabulated up! 
to date. 

The median percentile of the six tests gives the 
individual mental index. An interpretation of this 
index can only be made when we compare it with 
the mental indices of children tested on the six 



COMPUTATION OF THE RESULTS 39 

tests. From 2920 cases tested on all the six tests, 
tables of distribution of these mental indices were 
therefore made, and the percentile values for these 
indices determined. This procedure is necessary, 
because we are combining the results of six tests. A 
median percentile of 90 does not necessarily mean 
that the child is a ninety per cent child on all the 
tests combined. It will probably be higher, because 
a median of 90 indicates that the child is more than 
a ninety per cent child on three tests. A mental in- 
dex of 100 would mean that a child made 100 on four 
of the six tests and this would be very exceptional, 
as a matter of fact a performance that did not occur 
in any of the 2920 children under consideration. 
The table of median percentiles will be found in 
Part II where it can be used by the worker applying 
the tests. 



CHAPTEE IV 

SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 

Examples of tlie use of these tests in the survey of 
schools and other groups of children will be given 
here. The tests were given, scored and the results 
evaluated as described in Part II of this book — 
Guide for the Use of the Tests. 

We shall present the results from four city 
schools, one village school, and a group of four one- 
room rural schools. Table 7 shows the mental in- 



TABLE 7 
Mental Indices by Grades 



School 


Ci. 


Ch. 


01. 


On. 


V. 


R. 


Grade 














II 


23 


42 


35.5 


65 


7.5 


12 


III 


45 


58.5 


38 


64.5 


34.5 


9.5 


IV 


57 


58 


42 


58.5 


30 


18 


V 


65 


50 


44 


42 


18 


30 


VI 


65 


44 


58.5 


68 


40 


17 


VII 


58.5 


35 


58 


• • • • 


42 


8 


VIII 


58.5 


42 


68.5 





42 


36 


IX 


65 


65 





.... 








Whole 














School 


58.5 


47 


44.5 


58.5 


30 


17 



40 



SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 41 

dex of each grade for the six schools. The mental 
indices on this table are the corrected medians as 
derived from Table 28 (page 110). That is to say, 
the median percentile for the grade was interpreted 
in the light of the distribution of median percentiles 
as given in that table. This gives us a more cor- 
rect rating of the mentality of the group. The four 
city schools are called Ci, Ch, CI, Cn. The C in this 
case denotes ''city.'' The village school is desig- 
nated V, and the group of rural schools E. The 
table is to be read as follows: — the median mental 
index of the second grade in school Ci is 23, in school 
Ch 42, in school CI 35.5, and so on. The next line 
gives the median mental indices for grade three. 
The last line shows the median mental index for the 
whole school, and this may be taken as a measure 
of the mentality of the school. 

Figure 6 shows the same facts as Table 7. The 
fluctuation of the curves would seem to indicate con- 
siderable variability in the mentality of the children 
in diiferent schools and in different grades of the 
same school. One characteristic, common to all of 
the schools, except the village school, is the relatively 
higher mentality of the last grade in the school. 
This is seen in the rise of the curves for the highest 
grade, making the mentality of the children in the 
highest grade generally higher than that of any 
other grade in the same school. This characteristic 



42 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



does not apply to any one grade, but to the highest 
grade which the school happens to have. In schools 
Ci and Ch the highest grade is the ninth and the 



Perceniai/e 



Grade H 




MM J H M m 

Figure 6. Mental Indices by Grades. 



M 



mental index of this grade in each case is at least 
as high as that of any other grade, and higher than 
the grades immediately preceding. In schools CI 
and E the highest grade is the eighth and in both 



SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 43 

these cases the mental index is higher than any 
other grade in these schools. In school Cn the high- 
est grade is the sixth and again we find the index 
of this grade higher than that of any other grade in 
the same school. It will be noted that in most of 
these frve schools the grades immediately preceding 
the highest have relatively low mental indices. It 
would seem probable that the school looks upon the 
highest grade, whichever grade this may happen to 
be, as a kind of select grade, a sort of graduating 
class from which the most retarded pupils are ex- 
cluded. It may be that mental surveys of other 
schools may not find this to be a general custom. 
The number of schools tested in this investigation is 
not sufficient for a generalization of this kind. 

The great variability of the mental index in the 
different grades of the same school is noticeable and 
may reflect in a way the different customs in regard 
to promotion in the different schools. Grade two 
in school Ci is abnormally low and this is accounted 
for by the fact that one section of this grade was un- 
fortunately not tested, and this, according to the 
principal, was a brighter section than the section 
tested. 

The last horizontal row on Table 7 shows the 
median index for the whole school. The highest in- 
dex is obtained by Ci and Cn, i. e., 58.5 in each case. 
Ci is a junior high school in a very good quarter of 



44 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

the city and is recognized as one of the best schools 
in the city in regard to the class of children attend- 
ing the school. Cn is a school, which only goes up 
to the sixth grade. It is in much the same neigh- 
borhood as Ci and sends most of its pupils, who 
graduate from the sixth grade, to Ci. Cn, however, 
gets a certain small proportion of its pupils from a 
less desirable district than that from which the ma- 
jority of its pupils come. These pupils as a rule 
do not go much, if at all, beyond the sixth grade and 
therefore this element does not enter into school Ci. 
We shall see the effect of this element in another 
comparison of the schools immediately. 

School Ch ranks next to the two foregoing schools 
with an index of 47. This is another junior high 
school, the population of which is rather mixed. It 
may be described as composed of a very desirable 
class, a good middle class and a certain number of 
a poorer and more shiftless class. 

School CI ranks next with an index of 44.5. This 
school is in a good working class district, a district 
by no means as desirable as the districts in which 
the other schools are situated, but at the same time 
by no means one of the worst in the city. Its rank 
in regard to the other four schools is according to 
expectation. It was unfortunate that one of the 
schools in the worst district of the city could not be 



SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 45 

surveyed in time to be included in the results of the 
present investigation. 

The fifth in rank of the schools tested is the vil- 
lage school with an index of 30. This is a sleepy, 
unprogressive village and the mental index prob- 
ably sums up adequately the average mentality of 
the population. 

The rural schools rank lowest with an index of 
only 17. This was a great surprise to the writer, 
who had indeed expected an index lower than the 
city schools, but certainly not one so low. The fault 
may lie with the tests, although the results so far 
obtained would not seem to indicate this. It may 
be that this particular rural community does not 
possess a high grade of mentality. The results ob- 
tained in this case will be made the starting poini 
for an investigation into the mentality of the chil- 
dren in urban and in rural communities. This par- 
ticular rural community cannot, of course, be taken 
in any sense as typical of rural communities in gen- 
eral. We shall expect to find great variation in the 
mentality of rural communities, just as we find great 
variation in the mentality of the population in dif- 
ferent sections of a city. 

Another group of children, not a school, were also 
tested by the writer and will be mentioned here for 
purposes of comparison. The group included 94 



46 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

children in a county children's home.^^ The men- 
tal index of this group was 13, an index much lower 
than that of any of the schools tested. Knowing 
the type of children in this county home, we see 
that our survey tests bear out our knowledge of 
their mentality by placing them lower than any of 
the schools tested. 

Classification of Individuals. — Our survey tests 
cannot be used for individual diagnosis, because of 
the errors that may enter into the tests when given 
as group tests. We may, however, use them for a 
general classification into groups realizing that 
some particular cases may not be rightly classified. 
Some children may be placed too high and others too 
low. The general classification may nevertheless 
give us a fairly true picture of the group. 

Using the five-fold classification into Very Bright, 
Bright, Average, Backward and Dull, as suggested 
in Part II, and using the limiting points there given, 
we arrive at the results shown in Tables 8 and 9. 
All children six years and under have been omitted, 
because the mental indices for the six-year-olds can- 
not be used for the classification here adopted (see 
Table 28, p. 110). Table 8 gives the actual numbers 
and is to be interpreted as follows : — In school Ci 

ispintner, R., "The Mentality of the Dependent Child, To- 
gether with a Plan for a Mental Survey of an Institution/' /. of 
Ed. Psych., Vol. VIII, 3 (1917), 220-238. 



SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 47 

# 

TABLE 8 
Classification of Cases — Numbers 

Very Back- 

School Bright Bright Average ward Dull Total 

Ci. 93 127 398 78 44 740 



Ch. 


49 


75 


277 


94 


40 


535 


CI. 


33 


77 


295 


88 


56 


549 


Cn. 


55 


72 


190 


51 


45 


413 


V. 


1 


9 


77 


25 


40 


152 


R. 





2 


26 


22 


33 


83 



TABLE 9 

Classification of Cases — Percentages 

Very Back- 

School Bright Bright Average ward Dull Total 



Ci. 


12.6 


17.2 


53.7 


10.6 


5.9 


100.0 


Ch. 


9.2 


14.0 


51.7 


17.6 


7.5 


100.0 


CI. 


6.0 


14.0 


53.9 


16.0 


10.1 


100.0 


Cn. 


13.3 


17.4 


46.0 


12.4 


10.9 


100.0 


V. 


0.7 


5.9 


50.6 


16.4 


26.3 


99.9 


R. 





2.4 


31.4 


26.5 


39.8 


100.1 



93 children are classified as Very Bright, 127 as 
Bright, 398 as Average, 78 as Backward, and. 44 as 
Dull, making a total of 740. The rest of the table 
is to be read in the same way. 

Table 9 shows the same facts expressed in per- 
centages, and is to be read as follows : — In school 
Ci 12.6 per cent of the 740 pupils tested are classi- 
fied as Very Bright, 17.2 per cent as Bright, and so 
forth.. 



48 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

These tables give ns more insight into the com- 
position of the schools. All the schools, with the 
exception of E, show the largest percentage of pu- 
pils in the Average group, and all of these, with the 
exception of Cn, show 50 per cent or more in this 
group. The greatest variation among the schools is 
in the Very Bright and Dull groups, where the 
greatest variation is to be expected. 

This classification shows us more detail about each 
school. Ci is characterized by a large percentage of 
very bright pupils, as we would expect in a school 
situated as it is. Moreover, there is a high per- 
centage of bright pupils and a very low percentage 
of dull pupils. 

Cn shows a high percentage of very bright and 
bright pupils, representing the pupils from the good 
district from which it draws. It also shows a high 
percentage of dull pupils representing the poorer 
district from which it also draws. The pupils from 
this district as a rule do not go from Cn to Ci, and 
hence they do not affect the percentage of the dull 
group in Ci. 

Ch shows a fair proportion of very bright pupils. 
Its characteristic, however, is a very large percent- 
age of backward pupils, representing the poorer dis- 
trict from which it draws some of its pupils. 

CI shows a fairly normal distribution with a slight 



SURVEYS OF SCHOOLS 49 

preponderance in the dull group. It lacks its due 
proportion of very bright pupils. 

The village school is shifted very much towards 
the lower end of the distribution. It possesses 
much more than its rightful share of dull pupils. 
It is woefully lacking in very bright pupils. 

The poverty of the rural school is shown in its 
lack of very bright and bright pupils in particular, 
but also in its relatively small percentage of aver- 
age pupils. The percentage of dull pupils is larger 
than the percentage of any other group in that 
school. The percentage of backward pupils is also 
very large. If our tests represent fairly the men- 
tality of the children, and if the mentality of the 
children in a community is a fair index of the men- 
tality of the community as a whole, then the mental- 
ity of this community cannot be very high. 

For purposes of comparison, again, we add here 
the classification of the 94 children in the children's 
home : — Very Bright — per cent ; Bright — 7.4 per 
cent; Average — 24.5 per cent; Backward — 21.3 per 
cent; Dull — 46.8 per cent. According to expecta- 
tion, this group of children shows a larger percent- 
age of dull children than any of the schools tested. 
The actual percentage of feebleminded and border- 
line cases in this children's home, as diagnosed by 
individual examinations, was 20.7 per cent. It is 
well to note that by '^Dull" we do not mean feeble- 



50 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

minded. More than the definitely feebleminded are 
included in the Dull group. At the present time it 
would not seem feasible to diagnose feebleminded- 
ness by means of these survey tests. It is very 
probable that in the Dull group most, if not all, of 
the feebleminded cases will be found. 

By these sample surveys of schools we have at- 
tempted to show what may be done at present with 
the survey tests. They will give us a convenient 
mental index for a whole school and they will allow 
us to gain some insight into the composition of the 
school in regard to the mentality of the children at- 
tending the school. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SURVEY TESTS AND OTHER ESTIMATES OF 
INTELLIGENCE 

Comparison with Estimates of Teachers. — The 

question of the reliability of the survey tests as a 
measure of intelligence may be examined in the light 
of their agreement or disagreement with the esti- 
mates of the pupils' abilities as given by the teach- 
ers. In three of the schools the teachers were asked 
to rank the children in their grades in order of in- 
telligence, and in all cases the teachers were found 
willing to co-operate in the work. 

It was impossible and impracticable to give any 
detailed explanation as to what is meant by general 
intelligence. Undoubtedly, very different concepts 
of general intelligence existed in the minds of dif- 
ferent teachers. Some probably had a fairly good 
idea as to the psychologist's conception of general 
intelligence, whereas others would scarcely differen- 
tiate general intelligence from ability to do school 
work. On the whole, therefore, we should not ex- 
pect nor desire a very high correlation between the 
ranking of the children on the survey tests and the 

51 



52 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

ranking of ttie children by the teacher. If the 
teachers' correlations were in all cases very high, 
this would denote one of two possibilities. The 
first would be that the teacher had a very accurate 
concept of general intelligence and was able, with- 
out the use of tests, to rank her pupils accurately. 
In this case, the labor involved in making the tests 
would be more or less superfluous. The second pos- 
sibility would be that the teacher was ranking ac- 
cording to school knowledge and high correlations 
in that case would mean that the tests were testing 
school knowledge and not general ability. Uni- 
formly high correlations are, therefore, undesir- 
able. On the other hand, we may expect great vari- 
ations in the correlations of different teachers, vary- 
ing according to their idea of general intelligence 
and according to their insight into the abilities of 
their pupils. On the whole, however, we should ex- 
pect a positive correlation of a fair size, since the 
teachers as a group have some idea as to what gen- 
eral intelligence means, as distinguished from 
school knowledge, and do possess some ability to 
rank their pupils in accordance with this idea, while 
abstracting from their scholastic performance. 

The correlations calculated by the Spearman 
Foot-Rule Method, shown in Table 10, seem to bear 
out the points mentioned in the discussion above. 
The table shows the correlations for the classes in 



THE SURVEY TESTS 



53 



TABLE 10 

Correlations — Teacher's Estimates and Survey Tests 



Grade 



Ci 



School 
Ch 



CI 



2a 

2b 

3a 

3b 

4a 

4b 

5a 

5bl 

5b2 

6a 

6b 

7a 

7b 

8a 

8b 

Av. r 
A. D. 



76 
28 
60 
34 
38 
59 
44 
47 

71 

47 



.50 
.13 



.69 


.77 


.44 


.52 


.62 


.35 


.75 


.32 


.14 


— .19 


.51 


.73 


.75 


.37 


.31 


.41 


. . . 


.14 


.54 


.62 


.23 


.44 




.50 




— .05 




.45 


... 


.20 


.50 


.37 


.17 


.19 



Av. r for all classes 



45 



54 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

three schools. Ci and Ch, the two junior high 
schools, do not show correlations for the seventh 
and eighth grades, because these grades are con- 
ducted on the department plan and it was impos- 
sible to get estimates from all the teachers con- 
cerned. School Ci shows an average r for ten classes 
of .50, with an extreme range from .28 to .76. 
With the exception of 2B showing a correlation of 
.28, most of the other classes show a fair correla- 
tion. On the whole, the teachers in this school 
might be classed above the average in training and 
intelligence. As we have stated before it is a very 
desirable school in a very desirable district and nat- 
urally attracts a superior type of teacher, superior 
in social status, not necessarily in regard to teach- 
ing ability, with reference to which the present in- 
vestigation has no concern. Closer inspection of 
the 2B grade with a correlation of .28 shows that 
the teacher ranked second a ten-year-old boy who 
ranked last in the survey tests. A ten-year-old in 
the second grade is very probably not a child of high 
intelligence, and the teacher was most likely influ- 
enced by the child's knowledge of school subjects. 
While this does not in itself explain the low cor- 
relation, it suggests the factors that are at work 
in some instances tending to lower the correlations. 
School Ch shows the same average correlation for 
all the classes as does school Ci, although the aver- 



THE SURVEY TESTS 55 

age deviation is somewhat greater as also is the 
range from the lowest, .14, to the highest, .75. There 
are two correlations which are decidedly low, 4A 
with a correlation of .14 and 6B with a correlation 
of .23. In grade 4A we find an eleven-year-old 
ranked third by the teacher and sixteenth by the 
tests and also a twelve-year-old ranked ninth by the 
teacher and fifteenth by the tests, showing that the 
age of the child tends to be overlooked by the 
teacher in her estimate of ability. 

The average of the correlations by classes for 
school CI is .37, a lower average than in the other 
two schools. As we stated before, the school is in 
a much less desirable district than the other two 
schools, and it is probable that the teachers in this 
school are on the average not as well educated as 
the teachers in the other two schools. It was the 
distinct impression of the writer when discussing 
the results of the survey with the teachers of this 
school, that the general nature of the work of meas- 
uring intelligence was not nearly so well understood 
by them as by the teachers in the other two schools. 
In examining the correlations we note for the first 
time the appearance of two negative correlations, 
namely minus .19 for 4A and minus .05 for 7B. In- 
quiry as to the method the teachers employed in 
ranking their pupils resulted in the interesting dis- 
covery that 4A with a correlation of — .19 had been 



56 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

ranked by a substitute teacher during a short ab- 
sence of the regular teacher. Furthermore, the 
teacher of 7B, with a correlation of — .05, said that 
she ranked her class on the basis of their school 
standing, not seeming to make any distinction in 
her own mind between general intelligence and 
school ability. No specific reasons for the low cor- 
relations of .14 in 5B and .20 in 8B, apart from the 
general neglect to consider chronological age, were 
found. 

The average correlation for all the 35 classes of 
all the three schools is .45. It seems to fulfill our 
expectations in being positive and fairly high, show- 
ing that on the whole there is some agreement be- 
tween the teachers' concept of general intelligence 
and the abilities measured by the survey tests. 
Again the wide variation between different teachers 
bears out the contention that they have very dif- 
ferent conceptions as to general intelligence, rang- 
ing all the way from identity with school ability to 
something which probably approximates the ordi- 
nary psychological concept. 

Correlation of Survey Tests and Yerkes Scale.— 
Shortly before the survey tests were given in school 
Cn, the children in three of the grades had been 
tested by the Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale. This al- 
lows a possibility of comparing the ranking on the 
survey tests with the ranking on the Yerkes Scale. 



THE SURVEY TESTS 57 

The Yerkes tests were for the most part given by 
about six advanced students of the writer and the 
testing is not offered here as expert testing. Some 
error is bound to enter in, due to the inexperience 
of the examiners and the number of examiners em- 
ployed. 

The number of children in each class and the cor- 
relations by the Spearman Foot-Rule Method are as 
follows; — 

No. of 
Grade r. Cases 

6B 29 37 

4B 59 34 

2B. 71 27 

All three grades . . .57 98 

The correlation for the total 98 cases is a fair cor- 
relation, considering the sources of error that may 
enter into any individual's rank on the survey tests. 
The correlation for 6B is rather low and no satis- 
factory explanation offers itself at present. 
Whether there is any significance in the decrease of 
the correlation as we go from the younger to the 
older children is not obvious. It may be that either 
the Yerkes Scale or the survey tests or both become 
less reliable for the older children, i. e., for children 
of ages eleven to thirteen. 

These correlations merely bear out the point, that 
we have emphasized before, that for individual diag- 



58 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

noses the survey tests are much too unreliable and 
that wherever any importance attaches to the diag- 
nosis of the individual, some scale of individual 
tests should be used. Children will be found who 
rank fairly low on the survey tests and high on the 
Yerkes. They may have been lazy or indisposed at 
the time the survey tests were given and have re- 
fused their best cooperation, something which the 
examiner in testing a class of children will be unable 
to detect. Again, a few rank low on the Yerkes and 
high on the survey tests. In such cases the child 
may have disobeyed instructions on the survey tests 
and continued working after the signal to stop had 
been given, or he may have copied from a neighbor, 
e. g., in the Word Building Test, or have written 
the words as the examiner read them in the Rote 
Memory Test, and so on. These sources of error 
decrease the reliability of our survey tests for pur- 
poses of individual diagnosis. 

The difference between the Yerkes Scale and the 
survey tests is further brought out by a distribu- 
tion into five groups according to each test. A five- 
fold classification has been made in each case and is 
as follows : — 

V.Br. Br. N.orAV. B. F.M.orD. 

Yerkes, CM A 34 30 24 10 

Yerkes, 3% Hypoth. 20 36 32 10 

Survey tests 9 15 53 13 8 



THE SURVEY TESTS 59 

A close agreement particularly at the two ends of 
the distribution is not to be expected, since the group 
dull on the survey tests is meant to be a larger 
group than the group of Feebleminded, as also with 
the very bright group at the upper end. 

The number in the very bright group according 
to the Yerkes Scale seems disproportionately large, 
suggesting, as has been noted by other workers, that 
the norms for the Yerkes Scale are too low or that 
our method of diagnosis is too lenient. Diagnosing 
by the Three Per Cent Hypothesis ^* corrects to some 
extent the great number of very bright cases. That 
the number in the very bright group seems dispro- 
portionately large is obvious when we call to mind 
that the Three Per Cent Hypothesis is based on the 
assumption of three per cent very bright, while the 
survey test group of very bright is based upon the 
assumption of ten per cent very bright. We should 
expect fewer very bright cases according to the 
Yerkes than according to the survey tests. The 
same considerations affect the feebleminded or dull 
group, and here our expectations are borne out by 
finding a greater number in this group for the sur- 
vey tests than for the Yerkes Scale. 

This variation in the distribution of the cases ac- 

^* Pintner, R. and Paterson, D. G., ^'A Psychological Basis for 
the Diagnosis of Feeblemindedness," /. of Criminal Law and 
Criminology, Vol. VII, 1 (1916), 32-55. 



60 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

cording to the Yerkes Scale and the survey tests in- 
dicates that either the norms for the Yerkes Scale 
are too low or that the norms for the survey tests 
are too high. 

Relation between the Survey Tests and the Binet 
Scale. — A comparison of 48 individuals tested by 
the Binet Scale (Goddard's Eevision) and the sur- 
vey tests will give further insight into the reliabil- 
ity of the tests. ^^ The cases were taken individu- 
ally so that very probably more reliable results were 
obtained than in the usual class test. All these 48 
cases were pupils in a school for defective children. 
The 48 cases were distributed in chronological age 
as follows: — 

Between ages 11 and 14. . . . 14 cases 

" " 15 " 19.... 16 " 

« " 20 "24.... 8 " 

« " 25 "29.... 5 " 

« " 33 "39.... 5 " 

Total 48 cases 

In comparing the results of the survey tests with 

the Binet ages of a group that differed so widely in 

mental age as determined by the Binet Scale, as this 

group did, it was deemed best to find the median 

mental age on the survey tests, instead of the per- 

^^ The writer wishes to thank the Psychological Department of 
the Vineland Training School and in particular Miss Lucile Boy- 
Ian, who gave the tests, for their kind cooperation in this work. 



THE SURVEY TESTS 61 

centile. In this way the findings of the two tests 
could be compared directly with each other, and, 
furthermore, our percentiles are not reliable above 
age fifteen and a great many of the*cases were above 
that age. 

In computing the mental age the medians or 50 
percentiles were used. The child's score on each 
test was given the age to the median score of which 
it corresponded, interpolation between ages being 
used. The median of the six mental ages thus ob- 
tained was taken as the mental age of the child. 

The distribution of the cases by mental age as 
computed by the Binet Scale and by the survey tests 
is shown in Table 11. It will be noted that the range 
in mental age is much greater on the survey tests 
than on the Binet Scale. The limit of the Binet 
Scale is age eleven, but some of the cases on the sur- 
vey tests show a median mental age of many years 
above age eleven. The median mental age by the 
Binet is 9.3, and by the survey tests 9.05. The 
closeness of the medians shows the similarity of the 
two methods in estimating the intelligence of the 
group, while the range of mental age as shown by 
the distribution indicates some difference in the 
classification of the individuals within the group. 

The correlation between the ranks of the cases 
on the two methods by the Spearman Foot-Eule 
Method is r = .66, naturally a fairly high correla- 



62 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 11 

Mental Age by Binet Scale and by Survey Tests 



Mental Age 


Number of Cases 


—5 


Binet 


Survey 
1 


5 


.... 


2 


6 


1 


3 


7 


6 


7 


8 


11 


11 


9 


15 


4 


10 


12 


5 


11 


3 


4 


12 




4 


13 




1 


14 




3 


15 




1 


16 




. . . c 


17 




1 


17 + 




1 


Total 


48 


48 


Med. M.A. 


9.3 


9.05 



THE SURVEY TESTS 63 

tion because we are dealing with a fairly hetero- 
geneous group. 

There were 22 cases that tested higher on the 
survey tests than on the Binet; two tested exactly 
the same on both scales : and 24 tested higher on the 
Binet than on the survey tests. The average dif- 
ference of the 22 testing higher on the survey tests 
was + 2.3 years, while the average difference of the 
24 testing higher on the Binet Scale was + 1.1 year. 
This shows that the survey tests oifer a greater 
range and particularly in the upward direction. If 
the individual has ability, he can show it by his per- 
formance on the survey tests and attain a mental 
age five or six years above the Binet age. 

This comparison of the Binet Scale and the survey 
tests goes to show as the other comparisons have 
done, that we must not place too much reliability on 
the survey tests for individual purposes, but that 
for groups they give a fairly accurate measure of 
mentality. 



CHAPTER VI 

EDUCATIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT AND MENTAL 

ABILITY 

A FUTUKE use of the mental survey will unques- 
tionably be a more accurate evaluation of the edu- 
cational accomplishment of our schools. This will 
be one of the most practical applications of the 
method of the mental survey which we have de- 
scribed in this book. At the present time, however, 
we can merely indicate the method. Results of any 
importance we have not yet had time to collect. 

If it is true, as it would seem to be, that the vari- 
ous grades in a school to some slight extent, and the 
various schools in a community to some consider- 
able extent, ditf er in mentality, then it would be log- 
ical to demand progress in educational achievement 
in proportion to the mentality possessed by the 
grade or school. It is obviously unfair to a 30 per 
cent school to expect 50 per cent work. And con- 
versely, a 50 per cent school should be doing 50 per 
cent work, or else it is marking time and wasting 
good material. Our mental tests give us a measure 
of the raw material with which the teacher has to 
deal. Knowing the measure of the raw material the 

64 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 65 

teacher should see to it that the raw material is ef- 
fectively utilized. To take an example for purposes 
of illustration. If the median mental index of a 
third grade is about 50, then the median educational 
index for the grade, founded on the ability of third 
grades in general, should also be about 50. In 
other words, average third graders should be doing 
average third grade work. If the educational index 
of the grade is below 50, then either the teaching in 
the school is poor or the children are too far ad- 
vanced for their age. This latter fact can be de- 
termined by the average age of the class. If the 
educational index is above 50, then the teaching is 
exceptionally good, i. e., better than median third 
grade teaching, or else the children are too old for 
their grade and should really be doing fourth grade 
work. The evaluation of educational achievement 
in terms of the mentality of the child will raise vital 
questions in regard to teaching and to school ad- 
ministration. 

All this presupposes a standardization of our 
school subjects in terms of percentiles of grade abil- 
ity. Just as we have standardized our mental tests 
in terms of percentiles for each age, in the same 
way each important subject in the school course will 
have to be standardized for each grade. With our 
present equipment of tests for the principal school 
subjects, it would not be difficult to test enough 



66 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

cases in order to compute percentile norms for each 
grade. We have worked to some extent with two 
standard tests, and although the norms are by no 
means adequate, we will give the results more for the 
sake of illustrating the method than for the value 
of the results themselves. 

Trabue Language Scale B was one of the educa- 
tional tests used. In one sense of the word the 
Trabue Language Scales cannot be called educa- 
tional tests, because ability to comprehend and 
handle language is not entirely dependent upon 
school instruction. So much language is learned 
from the extra-school environment. Subjects such 
as arithmetic, spelling, grammar, history, are much 
more dependent upon school instruction. Neverthe- 
less, the results we have collected with the Trabue 
Language Scale B will at least serve to illustrate 
the method. 

Table 12 gives the percentile norms for each 
grade. This standardization is far from complete 
and we do not pretend that the number of children 
is at all representative of school children in gen- 
eral. The table is to be read as follows : — The 
best score in the first grade is 13, the score of the 
90 per cent child is 8, that of the 80 per cent child is 
6, and so on down the first vertical column. The 
number of first grade children tested was 45. To 
find a child's percentile ability on the test, find the 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 67 

TABLE 12 
Trabue Language Scale B — Percentiles 

Grade I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX ^X'" 

Percentile 

100 13 10 15 16 19 16 19 20 19 20 

90 8 8 11 12 14 14 15 16 17 19 

80 6 7 10 12 13 14 14 15 16 19 

70 6 6 9 11 12 13 14 15 15 19 

60 6 6 8 10 12 13 13 14 15 18 

50 4 6 8 10 11 12 13 13 14 18 

40 4 4 7 9 11 12 12 13 14 17 

30 2 4 7 8 10 12 12 13 13 17 

20 2 4 6 8 9 11 11 12 13 16 

10 2 6 6 8 10 10 11 11 15 

000258658 12 

No. of Cases 45 116 184 177 204 154 186 186 144 46 



68 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

column for his grade, run down the column until 
his score is found and then move across horizontally 
to the first column on the left to find his percentile. 
This denotes his ability with reference to children 
of his grade in general. 

Grades 2 to 6 in school Ci and grades 2 to 8 in 
school CI were tested with the Trabue Scale B about 
the same time that they were tested with the survey 
tests. The score obtained by each child was turned 
into a percentile value by means of Table 12 in ac- 
cordance with the grade of the child. For example, 
a child in the second grade scoring 4 was given a 
percentile of 30, because 4 is equal to a 30 percen- 
tile performance for second grade children. In all 
cases, as in this example, where the score is the 
same for more than one percentile, the middle point 
between the percentiles having the same score was 
taken. In this way we have a percentile expressing 
achievement in language for each child. The me- 
dian of these percentiles for each grade gives us an 
index of achievement for each grade in terms of the 
corresponding grades for school children in gen- 
eral (presuming our standardization is complete). 

Table 13 shows the mental index and the language 
index for each grade for the two schools in ques- 
tion. It is to be interpreted as follows : — In school 
CI in grade 2B the percentile for language achieve- 
ment is 30 and the mental index is 32 ; in grade 2A 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 



69 



TABLE 13 
Language Achievement Compared with Mentality 



Grade 


School CI. 


School Ci. 




Language 


Mentality 


Language 


Mentality 


2b 


30 


32 






2a 


60 


42 


45 


23 


3b 


35 


39 


58 


50 


3a 


50 


20 


55 


42 


4b 


40 


42 


55 


55 


4a 


55 


42 


70 


62 


5bl 


45 


59 


65 


61 


5b2 


45 


39 






5a 


65 


41 


65 


66 


6b 


53 


66 


40 


60 


6a 


40 


51 


65 


66 


7b 


35 


45 




• • 


7a 


55 


64 


• • 




8b 


45 


66 






8a 


55 


72 






Whole School 


50 


44.5 


60 


58.5 



70 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

the language index is 60 and the mental index 42, 
and so on. Presuming that our standards are ac- 
curate, we should say that in school CI grades 2A, 
3A, 4A and 5A are doing excellent language work in 
view of the mentality of the pupils in those grades. 
Grades 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, and perhaps 7A are doing 
about what is to be expected considering the men- 
tality of the pupils that make up those grades. But, 
in grades 5B, 6B, 6A, 7B, 8B and 8A the language 
work is below expectation considering the mental- 
ity of the children in those grades. Similarly, in 
school Ci we should pick out grades 2A and 3A as 
doing excellent language work, and single out grade 
6B as doing exceptionally poor work. Lastly, we 
may compare the language achievement and the 
mentality of the whole school. Both schools show 
language achievement slightly in excess of mental- 
ity, but not to any marked extent. School Ci is do- 
ing in language just about what it ought to be doing. 
School CI is a little above expectation. Further- 
more, by subtracting the mental index from the lan- 
guage index, we find that school Ci has an excess of 
+ 1.5 and school CI of + 5.5. School CI is doing 
slightly better language work than school Ci, if we 
consider the mentality of the pupils with which 
school CI has to deal. Ci is absolutely better than 
CI, and this is all that our educational surveys up 
to the present time have been able to measure. 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 71 

Eelatively, school CI is better than Ci. This is a 
more just and a more accurate measurement of the 
language instruction given in school CI. 

A beginning of the same kind of evaluation in 
arithmetic has been made. Tables 14 to 18 inclu- 
sive give the percentiles for the four operations 
(speed and accuracy) as measured by the Courtis 
Arithmetic Tests. We convert the scores of each 
child into percentiles according to his grade, and 
from the eight percentiles so obtained arrive at a 
median percentile expressing his arithmetical 
achievement. The median of these arithmetic in- 
dices gives a measure of the arithmetical ability of 
the class or school. Inspection of the tables reveals 
the great number of cases in which the scores for 
contiguous percentiles are the same. This is owing 
to the nature of the test, which does not allow a 
wide range of scoring. In all probability some other 
arithmetic test, which allows a wider range of scor- 
ing, would be preferable for such survey purposes 
as we are describing. 

Only one of the schools for which mental indices 
are at hand was given the Courtis Arithmetic test. 
This is school CI and we show in Table 19 the arith- 
metic indices for each grade and for the whole school 
contrasted with the mental indices. Without going 
into a detailed analysis, we note that on the whole 
the arithmetic index is below the mental index in 



72 



THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 14 
CouKTis Arithmetic Tests, Series B — Percentiles 

Grade IV 
Addition Subtraction Multiplication 

Percentile Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights 

100 12 12 15 12 13 11 



90 



8 



6 



8 



80 



6 



70 



6 



6 



60 



50 



40 



30 



20 















10 







































No. of Cases 439 439 439 439 439 439 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 73 

TABLE 15 
Courtis Arithmetic Tests, Series B — Percentiles 

Grade V 

Addi- Sub- Multi- Divi- 

tion traction plication sion 

Percentile Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights 

100 14 13 17 12 13 11 14 13 

90 97988686 

80 85877565 

70 74 8665 54 

60 6 3 7 5 6 4 5 3 

50 637 4; 6342 

40 5 2 6 3 5 3 4 2 

30 52635231 

20 41524130 

10 30413120 

00001000 
No. of Cases 460 460 460 460 460 460 460 460 



74 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

TABLE 16 

Courtis Arithmetic Tests, Series B — Percentiles 

Grade VI 



Addi- Sub- Multi- Divi- 

tion traction plication sion 

Percentile Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights 

100 15 ^14 18 16 18 12 15 14 

90 9 7 11 9 10 8 9 8 

80 86 10 88687 

70 85 97 86 76 

60 7 4867565 

50 63866454 

40 63756453 

30 52 74 5343 

20 51635242 

10 4 1 5 2 4 1 3 1 

00001000 
No. of Cases 419 419 419 419 419 419 419 419 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 75 

TABLE 17 
Courtis Arithmetic Tests, Series B— Percentiles 









Grade VII 












Addi- 
tion 


Sub- 
traction 


Multi- 
plication 


Divi- 
sion 


Percentile 

100 


Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights 

17 16 21 20 15 12 


i Attempts Rights 

22 22 


90 

1 


11 


9 


14 


12 


10 


8 


12 


11 


80 


10 


7 


12 


10 


9 


7 


10 


9 


70 


9 


6 


11 


9 


8 


6 


9 


8 


60 


8 


5 


10 


• 8 


8 


5 


8 


7 


50 


7 


4 


9 


7 


7 


4 


7 


6 


40 


7 


3 


8 


6 


6 


4 


6 


5 


30 


6 


2 


8 


6 


6 


3 


6 


4 


20 


5 


2 


7 


4 


5 


3 


5 


3 


10 


4 


1 


6 


4 


4 


2 


4 


2 





1 





3 





1 





1 





No. of Cases 


253 


253 


253 


253 


253 


253 


253 


253 



76 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

TABLE 18 
Courtis Arithmetic Tests, Series B— Percentiles 

Grade VIII 

Addi- Sub- Multi- Divi- 

tion traction plication sion 

Percentile Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights Attempts Rights 

100 16 15 20 17 14 14 16 16 

90 10 8 13 11 11 8 12 11 

80 9 6 12 10 10 7 10 9 

70 8 5 11 9 9 6 9 8 

60 8 4 11 8 8 5 8 7 

50 7 3 10 7 8 5 8 6 

40 73967476 

30 62857465 

20 62846364 

10 51635253 

00102010 
No. of Cases 263 263 263 263 263 263 263 263 



ACCOMPLISHMENT AND ABILITY 



77 



TABLE 19 
Arithmetic Ability Compared with Mentality 



School CI. 


Grade 


Arithmetic 


Mentality 


4b 


32.5 


42 


4a 


35.0 


42 


5bl 


32.5 


59 


5b2 


45.0 


39 


5a 


35.0 


41 


6b 


33.75 


66 


6a 


33.75 


51 


7b 


47.5 


45 


7a 


55.0 


64 


8b 


53.75 


66 


8a 


52.5 


72 


Whole School 


40 


44.5 



78 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

most grades. "We note, also, that the arithmetic in- 
dex for the whole school, 40, is slightly below the 
mental index of the whole school, 44.5. Our judg- 
ment would, therefore, be that the school as a whole 
is not achieving quite as much as it ought to achieve 
in arithmetic. The difference between the two in- 
dices is slight, and we do not yet know how much 
weight should be attached to a difference of this 
magnitude. Again, we may compare the arithmetic 
with the language index and note that the school 
shows superior achievement in language as com- 
pared with arithmetic. 

We have given these results to show the method 
of evaluation of educational achievement in terms 
of mentality. The standardizations of the Courtis 
Arithmetic Scale and of Trabue Scale B are by no 
means adequate for the conclusions we have drawn. 
We believe, however, that in the future this kind of 
evaluation will be insisted upon. The evaluation of 
educational achievement to be just and accurate 
must be made with due regard to the mentality of 
the pupil. 



PAET II 

A GUIDE FOE THE USE OF THE SUEVEY 

TESTS 



CHAPTER VII 

GIVING THE TESTS 

The six survey tests have been described in Chap- 
ter II, in which place the reader will also find pic- 
tures of the tests. In this chapter the procedure of 
giving the tests will be explained. 

If a large school is to be tested, it is well for the 
investigator to have some assistants to help in giv- 
ing the tests, so that the whole school may be ex- 
amined during the same day, and thus avoid any 
discussion of the tests among the children. If as- 
sistants are employed, it is imperative to drill them 
beforehand on the method of procedure in giving 
the tests. The writer has always insisted upon the 
assistants rehearsing the procedure before himself 
and the other assistants so that nothing may be left 
to chance when the tests are actually being given. 
It is well to have an estimate of the number of chil- 
dren in each class to be tested, so that the requisite 
number of blanks of each test may be tied together 
in bundles for each room as they will be needed. If 
the school is a large one, and several assistants are 
to be used in giving the tests, it is best to have the 

81 



82 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

number of the room for each class, and to assign 
definite rooms to each assistant. All this will help 
to save time and, what is perhaps more important, 
to make the conduct of the examination proceed 
more smoothly, and thereby avoid unnecessary dis- 
location of the routine work of the school. Teachers 
and pupils will be in a much better frame of mind, 
if things go smoothly, than if things are disorderly 
and haphazard. 

When the examiner enters the room he should 
make a few remarks to the pupils in order to re- 
move any fear or misunderstanding on their part. 
He should say that what he is going to ask them to 
do is not an examination, that he is not going to ex- 
amine their school work, but that he is going to give 
them some interesting and amusing things to do (it 
is well to avoid the use of the word ^^tesf ), to see 
how well they can remember and to see how quick 
they are. He may tell them that these same things 
have been given to many other schools and that they 
should all try to do their best. These preliminary 
remarks should be brief or lengthy according to the 
nature of the case. As soon as the examiner feels 
himself en rapport with the class, as soon as the 
class is at perfect ease, he may go on to the testing 
proper. 

In timing the tests, use a stop watch, if possible. 
If not, use the second hand of your watch, marking 



GIVING THE TESTS 83 

down when you begin and every time the second 
hand comes round to this place. You cannot read 
the time accurately by using the minute hand only. 
The time for all the tests, with the exception of the 
first, must be accurately kept. 

See that every child is provided with a pencil. 

EoTE Memory Test 

See that every child is provided with a blank sheet 
of paper. The paper may be supplied by the school 
or by the examiner.^^ Tell the children to write 
their name, age and grade on the top of the sheet. 
The age asked for is the age last birthday. In all 
this work this is the age that has been used, because 
this is the age best known to children and the one 
that they ordinarily use. Confusion is sure to arise 
if the age at the nearest birthday is demanded. 

Then say something to this effect, ^^I am going 
to see how well you can remember things. I shall 
read out some words keeping my hand raised up like 
this while I am reading. After I have stopped read- 
ing the words, I shall put my hand down like this, 
and as soon as you see my hand go down, write 
down on your paper all the words I have read just 
exactly in the same order as I have read them. Now 

^^ I have tried supplying uniform sheets of paper for this test, 
but I have abandoned it because it merely adds to the bulk of test 
material to be carried to the school. Paper supplied by the 
school is quite satisfactory. 



84 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

suppose I were to read these words Mog, flower, 
pencil,' then as soon as you saw my hand go down, 
you would write on your paper like this (using the 
blackboard to illustrate) ^dog, flower, penciP (all 
in the same line). Suppose now you forgot the 
word ^flower' (erasing the word), how would you 
let me know that you knew there ought to be a word 
in between *dog' and ^pencil'? (Someone in the 
class should be allowed to answer the question if pos- 
sible.) Yes, put a line to show where you have left 
out a word. I shall try to say the words as clearly 
as possible, but if you should not understand a word, 
do not interrupt the others by asking what it is. 
Just try to write down what you think I said. Try 
to remember as many words as possible and try to 
write them down in the right order. As soon as 
you have written the words, sit back in your seats, 
so that I may know when you have all finished and 
are ready for the next set. Now does everybody un- 
derstand? Does anyone want to ask any ques- 
tions! Get ready now." The examiner then pro- 
ceeds with the test reading the words with as clear 
an enunciation as possible at the rate of one per sec- 
ond or a trifle slower. Never repeat a group of 
words or a single word. 
The words are: 

1. street, ink, lamp. 

2. spoon, horse, chair, stone. 



GIVING THE TESTS 85 

3. ground, clock, boy, chalk, book. 

4. desk, milk, hand, card, floor, cat. 

5. ball, cup, glass, hat, fork, pole, cloud. 

6. coat, girl, house, salt, glove, watch, box, mat. 
After the children have finished the last set of 

words, have the children sitting in the back row 
come forward and collect the papers. 

Digit-Symbol Test 

With grades four and above, it is sufficient to ex- 
plain the test by holding a test sheet up in front of 
the class. With grades three and below a black- 
board demonstration is best. Say something to this 
effect, ^ ' Here are nine circles at the top of the paper. 
In each of these circles there are numbers from one 
to nine and in each circle there is a little sign that 
belongs to the number. Each number has its sign. 
Here below the circles are rows of numbers and for 
each number there is a blank space. There are ^ve 
numbers and five blank spaces on each line. Here 
is a number 6. What would you put in tho blank 
space?'' (Answer — the sign that belongs to six.) 
And so on until the class as a whole understands 
the procedure. With young children it is well to 
draw on the board the nine circles with the digits 
and symbols and also a sample line or two of ^ye 
numbers and five little squares and to have them 
come to the board and actually fill in the blanks. 



86 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

Give them every possible chance to understand be- 
fore the test starts. ^^Now when I say, ^Get ready, 
go,' you are to turn your papers over at the word 
go and fill in as many as you can for five minutes. 
When I say *Stop,' you must stop at once. Wo' 
want to see who can fill in the most/' 

Distribute the papers and start the test. Use a 
stop watch, if possible. If you use an ordinary 
watch, use the second hand. You cannot keep ac- 
curate time by using the minute hand. Further- 
more, if you use th<^ second hand, jot down the time 
when you start the test, say at 40 seconds, and then 
keep your eye on the watch and mark down every 
time that the second hand comes around to 40 until 
the five minute period is completed. Do not trust 
to your memory. If you do not keep accurate time, 
your test will be valueless. If a child finishes before 
the time limit, note the time at which he finished and 
mark this on his test paper. This applies to all 
the other time limit tests. 

At the end of the time, say *'Stop,'' and see that 
every child stops working promptly. Have the 
children turn over their papers and write their 
name, age and grade on the back. This prevents 
children from going on working after the signal for 
stopping has been given. Have the children collect 
the papers as soon as they have written their name, 
etc. 



GIVING THE TESTS 87 

While the children are working on this test, time 
can be saved by distributing" the requisite number 
of test blanks for the next test for each row in the 
class. When the time for distributing these blanks 
comes, the children on the front row can distribute 
them quickly. This procedure should be adopted 
for all the succeeding tests. 

Symbol-Digit Test 

This test is to be explained in the same manner 
as the previous test. Preface your explanation by 
saying, ^'This time we are going to do something 
very much like what we did last time, only this time 
you are to fill in the numbers instead of the signs. 
Here at the top are nine circles, ^ ' continuing as with 
the last test only somewhat more briefly and rap- 
idly. For the younger children illustrate on the 
board as before. 

Have the test papers distributed and give the 
usual signal for starting. The time limit is five 
minutes. At the signal for stopping, have the chil- 
dren turn over their blanks and write their name, 
age and grade. The papers are to be collected as 
before. 

Word Building Test 

The instructions are as follows: — ^^This time 
when you turn over your papers you will see at the 



88 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

top six letters, and I want to see who can make the 
most words with those six letters. Suppose the six 
letters were ^a, e^ o, b, m, t.' '^ Write these on the 
board and have several children in the class give 
suitable words, correcting them and explaining any 
mistakes, if such are made. Write some of these 
sample words on the board. If a word with the 
same letter used twice is given, use this as an illus- 
tration of what is not allowed. If such a word is 
not given, write ''boof on the board, and ask them 
whether this will do. Explain why it is not cor- 
rect. Finally erase the letters on the board telling 
the class that these are not the letters they will find 
on the sheets, but that other letters will be found 
there. 

Distribute the test sheets. The time limit is five 
minutes. At the end of this time, stop the children 
and have them turn over the papers and write their 
names, etc., as before. 

Opposites Test 

The instructions are as follows: — ^'This time 
when you turn over your papers, you will find a lot 
of words printed down one side with a blank space 
for you to write something in beside each word. 
You are to write in the opposite of each word. Now 
suppose you saw these words,'' writing on the 
blackboard : 



GIVING THE TESTS 



long 



up - 
soft ■ 
north 



^^Wliat is the opposite of long? If a thing isn't 
long, what is itf Having received the correct an- 
swer from the class, write it on the board, and pro- 
ceed with the other words. Instruct the class fur- 
ther, ^^If you cannot think of a word, don't sit think- 
ing and doing nothing. Just go on to the next 
word. See how many you can write down. If you 
have time, you can go back and fill in the words you 
could not think of at first. ' ' 

Have the papers distributed face down, caution- 
ing against not turning them over until the signal, 
because this is a one-minute test. When all are 
ready, give the signal to begin and stop them after 
one minute. Be sure to watch the time carefully. 
Then turn over the papers and write their names, 
etc., as before. 

Cancellation Test 

The instructions are as follows: — ^'This time 
when you turn over your papers, you will find a lot 
of letters printed on your paper, all muddled up. 
Now all that you have to do, is to cross out all the 
A's." Write on the board '^BKALTAMG" or 
any other series of capital letters. ''Would you 



90 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

cross out this oneT' pointing to the B. '^No. 
Would you cross out the next? No, because it is a 
K and not an A. Would you cross out the next? 
Yes. Just put a line through it like this A. Just 
put a line through it because that is the quickest way 
to cross it out. I am only going to give you one 
minute, so you must work as hard as you can to see 
who can cross out the most.** 

Have the papers distributed and give the signals 
for starting and stopping as before. Have them 
turn over their papers and write their names, etc., 
as before. 

The Language Scales and Akithmetic Tests 

For full directions for giving these tests the 
reader must be referred to Trabue^s book,^"^ and to 
the manual of instructions issued by Courtis and 
supplied with the tests, 

^^ Trabue, M. R., "Completion Test Language Scales," Teach- 
ers' College Contributions to Education^ No. 77 New York (1916). 



[CHAPTER VIII 

SCORING THE TESTS 

This chapter will give as detailed instructions as 
possible for scoring the tests. 

Rote Memory Test 

A credit of two is allowed for each correct word 
in its correct position; a credit of one for a correct 
word not in the right position. There are 33 words. 
The maximum score is, therefore, 66. No credit is 
deducted for misspelled words. This is not a spell- 
ing test, but a memory test, and a child is not to be 
penalized, because of inability to spell the words 
correctly. Furthermore, since there is always a pos- 
sibility of misunderstanding the pronunciation of 
the examiner, any word that resembles in sound the 
correct word is given credit. Samples of such mis- 
understandings for which credit has been allowed 
are as follows : — pink for ink, lamb for lamp, deck 
for desk, match for mat, cut for cup, mill for milk, 
cart for card and so on. These are merely samples 
to show more clearly the method of scoring. There 
are many other possibilities, but it would be useless 

91 



92 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

to list them all here. The examiner must keep con- 
stantly in mind that he is giving a memory test and 
that it is the sole object of the test to test the mem- 
ory of the child and nothing else. 

The correction of a great many papers can be 
facilitated, if several are correcting them, by having 
one individual read the correct list over and over 
again while the others do the scoring on the papers. 

Digit-Symbol Test 

The number of blanks filled in correctly per min- 
ute is the score on this test. For example, if a child 
fills in 61 blanks correctly his score will be 12.2, i. e., 
61 divided by 5. There are in all 100 blanks to be 
filled in and these are arranged in twenty lines. 
Where there are no errors, it is easiest to count the 
number of lines correct and this number will be the 
score, because the time for the test is five minutes 
and there are five blanks on each line (or rather 
half line, as the test sheet has two columns). After 
a little practice the calculation of the score is very 
simple and may be rapidly performed. The actual 
correction of the test blanks is somewhat tedious. 
This again becomes easier with practice. Some 
workers find the task simplified by having beside 
them a correct test sheet for reference. 

Symbols reversed, c. g., L for 1, or symbols up- 
side down, e. g., V for A , are called errors. Sym- 



SCORING THE TESTS 93 

bols not formed absolutely perfect, owing to haste 
in writing, are not considered errors. Further- 
more, if the child fills in the blanks in the reverse 
order, i. e., writing from right to left instead of 
from left to right, we have not considered this an 
error. If such a procedure had been considered 
wrong, the subject would get practically no score for 
such a performance. 

If a child finishes before the time limit, his time 
will be marked on the paper, if the examiner has 
followed our instructions. In such a case the num- 
ber of correct blanks is divided by the time actually 
taken by the child, instead of by five. In this way 
it is possible to get scores above 40, and examples of 
such will be found on our tables of percentiles. 

Symbol-Digit Test 

The method of scoring is exactly the same as in 
the previous test. In this test the labor of correc- 
tion is much less. It is most economical to correct 
four or five blanks at the same time, with the help 
of a correct version. Eead over the five digits of 
the first line of the correct blank and then run the 
eye over the first line of the four or five sheets to 
be corrected. The procedure can be still further ac- 
celerated, if several individuals participate in the 
correction of the papers. In this case the most eco- 
nomical procedure would seem to be for one to read 



94 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

aloud from a correct version, while each of the oth- 
ers correct four or ^Ye test sheets simultaneously. 

As in the previous test, writing from right to left 
was not considered an error. 

Misplacement of the numbers of the first line ow- 
ing to the defective printing of the first asterisk on 
our test sheet was not considered an error. Credit 
was given for any correct numbers in spite of the 
fact that they were misplaced one space to the right 
in this first line of the test. 

Word Building Test 

The score on this test is the number of correct 
words. Here, of course, attention must be paid to 
the spelling of words. Misspelled words, even al- 
though they fulfill the conditions of the test cannot 
be allowed. The total number of words for which 
credit has been allowed is 59. Obsolete and for- 
eign words have not been credited. In our list some 
uncommon words will be found, and it was decided 
to allow credit for these should they appear, even 
although the presumption is strong that whenever 
they do appear in a child's list, they are in reality 
misspellings of other words, since these uncommon 
words are not known to children and, indeed, to few 
adults. The retention of these words makes our 
list of possible words more complete, and their oc- 
currence is not so frequent, as to cause any impor- 



SCORING THE TESTS 95 

TABLE 20 
Word Building Test — Words Credited 



A 


E 


I 


R 


L 


P 


a 


ear 


I 


* Rae 


lair 


pa 


ail 


Earl 
or 


Ira 


rail 


lap 


pail 


air 


earl 


ire 


rale 


lea 


pair 


ale 


Eli 




rap 


leap 


pal 


alp 


era 




rape 


Lear 


pale 


ape 






Rea 


liar 


paler 


April 






real 


lie 


par 


are 






reap 


lier 


pare 


Ariel 






rial 
rile 
rip 
ripe 


lip 


pea 

peal 

pear 

pearl 

per 

peri 

peril 

pia 

pie 

pier 

pile 

pirl 

plea 

plier 



96 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

tant difference in the scoring of individual papers. 
Words such as ^^ra, la/' etc., have not been in- 
cluded. Table 20 shows the list of words allowed 
arranged alphabetically under the six letters used 
in the test. 

Opposites Test 

The score for this test is the number of correct 
opposites. Just precisely what should be called an 
opposite is the only difficulty in grading this test. 
Our procedure has been an extremely lenient one, 
giving credit wherever a word could by any pos- 
sible means be considered an opposite of the test 
word. We give in Table 21 a list of all the op- 
posites allowed. This list may not be exhaustive, 
but for the use of our norms we believe the best pro- 
cedure would be to adhere fairly closely to this list. 
It will be noted that adverbs or nouns have not been 
credited for adjectives, nor adjectives for nouns, 
etc., e.g., ^'slowly'' is not allowed as an opposite 
of ^^ quick,'' nor ^^ peaceful" of ^'war," and so on. 

Cancellation Test 

The number of A's cancelled is the score. No 
penalty attaches to omissions or errors, i. e., cross- 
ing out the wrong letter. These latter have been 
considered sufficiently penalized by the amount of 
time wasted in crossing out the wrong letter. 



SCORING THE TESTS 



97 



TABLE 21 

Opposites Test — Words Credited 



Test Word 



Words Credited 



Good 

Outside 

Quick 

Tall 

Big 

Loud 

White 

Light 

Happy 



False 



Like 

Rich 
Sick 
Glad 

Thin 

Empty 

War 

Many 
Above 

Friend 



bad, poor, rotten 
inner, inside, within 
slow 

little, low, short, small, tiny 
little, small 

faint, gentle, low, noiseless, quiet, silent, soft, 
still, subdued, weak 
black, dirty 

dark, darkness, dim, heavy, night 
cross, discontented, disconsolate, downhearted, 
dreary, gloomy, glum, lonely, melancholy, mis- 
erable, mournful, sad, sorrowful, sorry, unhappy, 
unfortunate, wretched 

all right, fair, faithful, frank, friendly, genuine, 
good, honest, loyal, natural, original, real, right, 
true, truthful, valid 

despise, different, dislike, dissimilar, hate, odd, 
opposite^ unlike 
impoverished, poor 
healthy, well 

angry, gloomy, mad, melancholy, sad, sorrowful, 
sorry, sulky, unhappy 
fat, fleshy, plump, stout, thick 
filled, full 
peace 

few, little, one 

below, beneath, down, down below, under, 
underneath 
enemy, foe, stranger 



98 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

EDUCATIONAL TESTS 

Teabue Completion Test 

For the method of scoring and the alternatives al- 
lowed for each blank space the reader must be re- 
ferred to Trabue's book, because this material is 
too lengthy to include here. 

Courtis Arithmetic Tests 

The reader must again be referred to the man- 
ual of instructions supplied with the tests. 



CHAPTEE IX 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 



After all the test blanks have been scored, it is 
well to record the results for each child on some 
form of record card. A copy of the record card 
used by us appears below: — 



Psychological Clinic, 
The Ohio State University 



The Pintner 
Survey Tests 



Name 






Grade Age 




SCORE 


percen- 
tile 




Rote Memory 








Digit-Symbol 








Symbol-Digit 








Word-Building 








Opposites 








Cancellation 
































Median 

















It will be noted that three lines have been left 
vacant for the inclusion of any other additional 

99 



100 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

tests that might be given. In the vertical column 
headed '' score, '^ the scores for the various tests are 
recorded. These are copied from the test blanks, 
since in grading the test blanks, it is easiest to jot 
down the score on the blank at the time of scoring, 
leaving the filling in of the record cards after the 
scoring of all the test sheets has been completed. 
In the vertical column headed ^ ' percentile ^ ^ the per- 
centile value for each score is recorded. These per- 
centile values are obtained from Tables 22 to 27 in- 
clusive, which give the percentiles for each age for 
each test. In the recording of these percentiles it 
is not profitable to work out the actual interpola- 
tion. Inspection is sufficient. 

In actual practice it is generally most convenient 
to record all the percentiles for one test for a whole 
grade at a time, or for a whole school at a time. 
This procedure avoids the necessity for reference 
from one table to another in succession. Begin with 
the Bote Memory Test and record all the percen- 
tiles for a grade, or a school, then proceed with the 
Digit-Symbol Test, and so on. 

To find the appropriate percentile for a score, first 
note the age of the child, find the age on the per- 
centile table and run down the column until a value 
near the score is found. Note that each child is 
compared with other children of the same age re- 
gardless of his school grade. In most cases the 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 101 



TABLE 22 

Rote Memory Test — Norms 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 

Percentile 

100 34 39 49 56 60 61 66 64 62 66 59 64 

90 18 29 36 41 45 48 50 52 54 53 52 62 

80 12 25 32 38 42 45 47 49 51 49 50 58 

70 6 23 29 35 40 42 45 47 49 47 47 57 

60 4 20 27 33 37 40 43 45 45 45 47 56 

50 3 18 25 31 34 38 41 43 44 43 45 56 

40 2 14 22 28 32 36 39 40 42 41 42 55 

30 2 11 18 26 30 33 36 38 40 40 41 51 

20 7 14 23 27. 31 34 35 38 37 38 50 

10 3 7 18 21 27 29 32 35 32 36 46 

1 1 9 14 14 25 28 37 



102 THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 23 

Digit-Symbol Test — Norms 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 



Percentile 

100 14 20 25 25 26 33 34 40 38 39 40 50 

90 4 11 13 17 20 22 25 29 30 32 33 39 

80 9 11 15 18 20 23 26 28 29 31 37 

70 8 10 14 17 19 21 24 27 27 28 34 

60 6 9 12 16 18 20 23 25 26 26 32 

50 4 7 11 14 16 18 21 24 25 25 30 

40 1 6 10 13 15 17 20 22 23 24 29 

30 3 8 11 13 15 18 20 21 22 28 

20 0.1 6 9 11 13 16 18 20 20 27 

10 0.8 4 8 10 13 15 16 16 25 

000000000000 20 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 103 



TABLE 24 
Symbol-Digit Test — Norms 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 

Percentile 

100 13 19 20 26 29 34 38 40 45 39 41 53 

90 3 9 13 18 21 24 27 30 32 32 33 40 

80 7 11 16 19 21 23 27 29 29 29 38 

70 6 9 14 17 19 21 24 27 27 28 35 

60 5 8 12 15 18 19 23 25 25 26 33 

50 3 6 11 14 16 18 21 23 24 23 31 

40 1 5 9 12 15 16 20 21 22 22 29 

30 3 8 11 13 15 18 21 21 21 28 

20 5 8 11 12 17 18 19 16 26 

10 1 5 8 9 14 14 16 12 23 

000000000000 14 



104 THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 25 
WoKD Building Test — Norms 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 

Percentile 

100 6 13 11 15 20 20 27 30 29 26 25 35 

90 2 5 7 9 10 13 14 16 16 17 18 25 

80 1 3 5 7 9 11 12 13 14 15 14 23 

70 1 3 4 6 7 9 10 12 12 13 13 21 

60 2 3 5 6 8 9 11 11 12 12 19 

50 1 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 11 18 

40 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 9 18 

30 1 3 4 5 6 7 7 8 9 17 

20 1 2 3 3 4 5 6 7 7 16 

10 1 12 2 3 4 4 4 14 

000000000000 11 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 105 



TABLE 26 
Opposites Test — Norms 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 

Percentile 

100 5 19 17 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 

90 1 6 9 11 15 15 17 19 19 19 20 20 

80 5 7 9 12 13 16 17 18 18 19 20 

70 4 6 8 11 12 14 16 17 16 17 20 

60 2 5 8 9 11 13 15 16 16 16 20 

50 2 4 7 8 10 12 14 15 15 15 20 

40 1 3 6 7 9 10 13 14 14 14 20 

30 2 5 7 8 9 12 13 13 13 19 

20 1 3 5 6 8 10 12 12 11 19 

10 1 2 4 7 7 10 9 10 18 

000000000002 13 



106 THE MENTAL SURVEY 



TABLE 27 
Cancellation Test — Noems 



Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Ad. 

Percentile 

100 73 78 76 97 86 86 92 98 100 99 97 89 

90 27 37 39 43 49 56 64 70 73 76 77 78 

80 23 31 35 38 45 48 59 62 65 68 71 69 

70 20 28 32 35 40 44 53 57 61 63 67 66 

60 18 26 29 32 37 41 49 54 57 61 61 64 

50 16 25 28 31 35 39 45 50 53 56 59 61 

40 14 22 26 29 33 36 41 48 50 53 56 59 

30 13 19 24 27 31 34 38 45 48 49 51 53 

20 10 17 21 24 29 32 35 40 44 46 49 50 

10 12 18 21 26 29 30 35 37 41 46 46 

000000000 13 27 28 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 107 

actual score will not correspond to any of the tabu- 
lated percentile scores but will lie somewhere be- 
tween two of them. Eun the eye over to the first 
vertical column on the left of the table to find the 
appropriate percentile. Estimate the distance be- 
tween these two scores in terms of ten units and 
then record the result. For example, a nine-year- 
old child scoring 34 on the Rote Memory Test has 
a score lying between the scores of 33 and 35 on the 
table, i. e., between the 60 and 70 percentiles, and will 
therefore be given a percentile grade of 65, and 
this is the grade to record on his card. Again a 
nine-year-old scoring 29 on the same test will be 
given a percentile grade of 43 or 44, since his score 
of 29 lies between 28, or the 40 percentile, and 31, or 
the 50 percentile, for nine-year-olds. When the 
scores for several contiguous percentiles are the 
same, choose for the percentile to be recorded the 
middle percentile of those for which the scores are 
the same. For example, on Table 23, Digit-Symbol 
Test, is the score for six-year-olds for all percen- 
tiles from to 80. A six-year-old scoring is, 
therefore, given a percentile of 40, i. e., the middle 
percentile value between the and 80 percentiles. 
A seven-year-old scoring on the same test is given 
a percentile of 15, i. e., midway between the and 
30 percentiles. 



108 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

We give below a sample record: — 

Name, Viola G. Grade 3 A. Age 8. 

Score Percentile 

Rote Memory, 32 80 

Digit-Symbol? 11.6 83 

Symbol-Digit 11.6 83 

Word Building 1 25 

Opposites ; 6 70 

Cancellation 44 92 

Median 81.5 

This child is eight years old and, therefore, we 
find the percentiles in the eight year column on each 
of the tables of percentiles. A score of 32 in the 
Eote Memory Test is equal to a percentile grade of 
80 ; a score of 11.6 in the Digit-Symbol Test is equal 
to a percentile grade of 83, and so on for the other 
tests. The child's index of mentality is shown by 
the median of the six percentiles. The median or 
middle value lies between the third and fourth value, 
because there are six values. The six values ar- 
ranged in order of merit are 25, 70, 80, 83, 83, 92. 
The median lies between the third and fourth, that 
is, between 80 and 83, i. e., Sl.5. The calculation 
of the median is very simple. It is not necessary to 
write down the values in order of merit. It is 
merely necessary to count up to the third value, then 
find the fourth and write down the interpolation be- 
tween these two. It is well after this has been done 
to glance at the fifth and sixth values to see that no 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 109 

error has been made in counting up from the lowest 
percentile. 

After the median percentiles or mental indices for 
all the children have been found, it is then possible 
to find the median percentile or mental index for the 
class, for the grade and for the entire school. The 
median percentile or mental index of the class is, of 
course, the index of the middle card after all the 
cards of the class have been arranged in order of 
merit according to the mental indices of the chil- 
dren. The median index for the school is similarly 
found by ranking all the children in the school, re- 
gardless of the grades to which they belong. 

The mental indices so found may serve for rough 
purposes of classification. A true interpretation of 
these is only possible when we compare them with 
the distribution of the mental indices in general. In 
other words the percentile grade for any child on 
each test is an accurate rating of that child's ability 
on each test, but the median of these percentiles does 
not at once give us an accurate rating of the child. 
"We must compare the child's total performance 
with the total performances of other children. To 
do this we have constructed Table 28 which gives a 
percentile distribution of the individual mental in- 
dices or median percentiles of the six tests. This is 
given for each age and also for the total number of 



no THE MENTAL SURVEY 

TABLE 28 
Percentile Distribution of Mental Indices 

Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Total 

Percentile 

100 97 95 96 97 96 96 99 95 97 96 99 99 

90 93 86 85 85 82 82 83 82 80 80 82 83 

80 87 78 76 79 72 73 75 74 75 72 70 75 

75 .. 71 

70 79 71 70 71 66 68 67 65 67 65 66 69 

60 70 65 65 65 60 60 60 58 60 60 ^60 61 

50 60 58 57 58 53 52 55 50 53 53 54 55 

40 45 51 50 52 45 46 47 45 50 49 50 49 

30 42 44 45 46 40 39 40 40 40 40 47 40 

•%% 

.25 .t ... .. • .. .«- .. .. 38 

'■■*.'- 

20 37 32 38 36 30 28 30 30 30 35 40 34 

10 35 17 22 23 22 19 20 22 20 23 32 21 

35 15 7000050250 

No. of 

cases 31 235 324 362 352 315 298 338 358 219 88 2920 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 111 

children. The distribution of the total 2920 cases 
is shown in the last column. 

To be absolutely accurate, we should now convert 
the mental index of each child into the new percen- 
tile as given on Table 28. If a nine-year-old child 
has a median percentile of 65, then his real mental 
index is 60, because 65 is equal to a percentile of 60 
for nine-year-olds. Where extreme accuracy is not 
desired the percentiles for the total group can be 
used, and their use will make the work easier. The 
percentiles for the total group are fairly representa- 
tive for all ages with the exception of age six. In 
most cases the conversion of each individual child's 
mental index into the corrected percentile is not nec- 
essary. It is, however, desirable to convert the me- 
dian of any group into the corrected percentile. 
For example, when the medians of the classes have 
been obtained, it is well to convert them into the 
corrected percentile as given in the last column of 
Table 28. If a class has a median mental index 
of 39, then this will become 27.5, since a median per- 
centile of 39 is made by about 27.5 per cent of the 
total group. The median of a whole school should 
always be corrected. If a school has a median men- 
tal index of 60, then this becomes 58.5. 

With the individual cases, it will be rarely profit- 
able to undertake the correction in each case, but 
what we are interested in doing is to obtain some 



112 THE MENTAL SURVEY 

sort of a classification according to degree of in- 
telligence. The following scheme has been used by 
the writer: — the upper 10 per cent is called Very 
Bright, the next 15 per cent Bright, the middle 50 
per cent Average, the lower 15 per cent Backward, 
and the lowest 10 per cent Dull. The limiting points 
for these five classes are taken from the distribu- 
tion of the total number tested. This will not give 
us an accurate classification of the six-year-olds and 
it is well to exclude them from such a classification. 
As can be seen from a study of the table it is not 
absolutely accurate for the other ages, but suffi- 
ciently so for the purpose of a general classification 
of the children of a school. The limiting points 
are :— 

Very Bright 84—100 

Bright 72— 83 

Average 39 — • 71 

Backward 22— 38 

Dull 0— 21 

This means that all children having a mental index 
(uncorrected) of 84 and above are to be called Very 
Bright; all having indices between 72 and 83 are 
classified as Bright; all having indices between 39 
and 71 average (high average 55 to 71, low average 
54 to 39) ; all having indices between 22 and 38 are 
called Backward; and all having indices below 21 
are to be considered Dull. A distribution of the 



EVALUATING THE RESULTS 113 

number and percentage of cases in each of these 
groups in a school should be made, as has been 
demonstrated in Chapter IV in the discussion of the 
schools tested by us. 

To sum up the procedure recommended in ordi- 
nary cases : — 

1. Compute the mental index for each child. 

2. Compute the median index for each class and 
convert this into the corrected index. 

3. Compute the median index for the school and 
convert this into the corrected index. 

4. Make a distribution of the individual cases, 
omitting age six, into the five-fold classification 
given above. 



INDEX 



Anderson, 20, 22. 
Arithmetic tests, Courtis, 27, 71, 
78, 90, 98. 
percentiles for, 72, 73, 74, 75, 

76, 77. 

Binet scale, 7, 60-63. 
Boylan, 60. 

Cancellation test, 23, 25, 36, 108. 

giving, 89, 90. 

norms, 106. 

number of cases, 38. 

scoring, 96. 
Children's Home, 46. 
Correlations, 52-61. 
Courtis, 27, 71, 78, 90, 98. 

Digit — symbol test, 14, 16, 19, 
28, 29, 32, 100, 107, 108. 
giving, 85, 86, 87. 
norms, 102. 
number of cases, 38. 
scoring, 92, 93. 

Ebbinghaus, 19. 
Educational tests, 26, 64-78. 

Feeblemindedness, surveys for 
estimating, 4. 

Goddard, 60. 

Grades, mental indices by, 40 et 
seq. 



Index, calculation of mental, 99- 
113. 
distribution of mental, 110. 
Intelligence, estimates of, 51-63. 

Language scale, Trabue, 26, 66, 
68, 69, 90, 98. 
percentiles, 67. 

Mentality, degrees of, 46 et seq., 
112 et seq. 

Norsworthy, 23. 

Opposites test, 23, 24, 29, 35, 108. 

giving, 88, 89. 
norms, 105. 
number of cases, 38. 
scoring, 96, 97. 

Paterson, 6, 15, 19, 59. 
Percentiles, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 

36, 101-106, 110. 
variations of, 29, 37. 
Pintner, 4, 6, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 

23, 26, 46, 59. 
Procedure in giving tests, 81-90. 
Pyle, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 

23. 

Eecord, sample of card, 99, 108. 
Eote memory test, 13, 28, 30, 31, 
58, 100, 107, 108. 
giving, 83, 84, 85. 



115 



116 



INDEX 



Rote memory test, norms, 101. 
number of cases, 38. 
scoring 91, 92. 

Schools, surveys of, 40—50. 
Scoring, methods of, 91-98. 
Simpson, 23. 
Spearman, 52, 57, 61. 
Standardization of tests, 13-78. 

method of, 29. 
Surveys, educational, 5. 

for estimating feebleminded- 
ness, 4. 

of schools, 40-50. 

social, 5. 
Symbol— Digit, test, 17, 18, 28, 
29, 33, 108. 

giving, 87. 



Symbol — Digit test, norms, 103. 
number of cases, 38. 
scoring, 93, 94. 

Teachers, estimates of, 51-56, 

Thorndike, 23. 

Trabue, 26, 66, 68, 90, 98. 

Whipple, 14, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 

25. 
Word building test, 19, 21, 34, 58, 
108. 
giving, 87, 88. 
norms, 104. 
number of cases, 38. 
scoring, 94, 95, 96. 

Yerkes scale, 7, 56-60. 



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